Dreaming of Stargazing
by Erin90
Summary: This is a fan fiction of the fan fiction Dreaming of Sunshine. Where I was reincarnated as Shikako instead of the DOS narrator. So instead of a motivated Nara you find a slightly crazy Nara. I know that I promised crazy and there isn't really much of it, just my character being silly but I promise you it gets better a few chapters(6) in. So please don't just read the first one.
1. Chapter 1 - Prologue

I know this is long and just a summary of my life but it might help with the story, but its sort of funny in a ironic kind of way. You can skip ahead if you want.

This a fan fic of a fan fic Naruto. The Fanfic is Dreaming of Sunshine and its an OC self-insert of the author one Shikako twin of Shikamaru. This story is if I was the one reincarnated as Shikako instead of the original narrator. I'm the less smart person, with bad social skills, bad planing skills and horrible memory. I'll also be a little more crazy and off-hinged than the actual Shikako. And I'm still not sure if I want to be Orochimaro the Second coming.

Prologue

I died and was reincarnated.

But no though I did not die in some cliché sob story or a glorified ball of flame. OK I did die burning but I died a really crappy death. So I was taking a walk in my relatively safe neighborhood, looking to loose some wight after really letting myself go. Where all of a sudden I was whacked in the back of my head with a vase, stabbed, soaked in gasoline and promptly set on fire.

Wait so how did I know that I was hit with a vase since they came from behind me? Right after I was hit; I passed out and had an out of body experience.

So I watched, helpless as the guy drop the vase and pick up a gas container, ready to start the light show. While the other guy stepped in from the side and gutted me. The guy waiting patiently for his turn then dumped me with some foul shit and lit me on fire.

You'd think that an out of body experience would let me off the hook because right then the sting of gasoline in my nose pulled my self-awareness back into myself as I felt my skin start to burn. And I could smell it, I could smell my own burning flesh. It burned. I writhed on the ground as my skin sort of melted – scorched itself...

The only thing working all throughout this was my hearing over the roar of the fire, I heard two guys laughing. I can't believe no one in my neighborhood came out to check on the fire in the middle of the street and and the guys that were practically giggling. Here was how the exchange went.

Nyaa-huk (Man, I really want to go Mwha-ha ha ha ha)

Hehehehehe hihiihhihih (Must resist urge to go Mwha ha ha hah ha)

So bloody... siad Guy # 1 as he stared at small pool of blood that escaped me before I had burst into flames.

So pretty...and shiny... said Guy # 2 as he watched the flames of my body flicker.

Gyaak

**Cough cough** went Guy # 2, (Man the fires getting to me)

So... Same place? Said Guy # 1

Yea... Two weeks? Guy # 2

Yeah, answered # 1

Then the two went to their separate cars and drove off in different directions.

So I died just like that.

I wasn't mugged or raped or any of the other worldly desires these kind of assaults warrant. I was just murdered literally for nothing. These two must have been the only bad guys in the whole world who actually did it for the shits and giggles (except for maybe psychopaths and serial killers but from the dialogue I can believe that they were).

I died and although it was shitty I didn't really have a life anyway. I didn't have any friends and even if I did I didn't have any remarkable traits or even hobbies to share with them. I didn't do anything but read either books or online novels or search the web for more. Read read read read. Read all the time; it was an all encompassing need. I wasn't even "Book Smart" since all I did was read fiction.

I had a mom and a dad, and three siblings... A dad who i hadn't seen since I was almost two, and a dead older brother who I've never met and two half sibling that I never met. Who were conceived by my dad and his new wife; who had went to find a wife in the homelands who desperately needed a shiny new green card. A year after he separated from my mom..

I'm not even sure if I even like reading anymore or if I ever liked reading. Now that I think about it; it might have been a coping mechanism. I was a bright, out going, and overly naive and optimistic person as a kid or so I used to like to believe in. But the more I look back on those days I realize that I was a totally self-centered and bull-headed brat. A really naive and dumb kid who had ideals and didn't even know that wars still existed and that thought racism only existed on T.V.

Run races with boys because it was fun and exhilarating to run? Sure! Ignore girls because I didn't want to jump rope or actually talk with people but not at them? Yep, that was me! Be deeply upset and resentful at the boys when they over shot me by third grade? Yes indeed-ie! Trying to beat up boys and ignore girls was what the rest of my stay at elementary school was like.

The only things I remember fondly those days was when I lead around a group of 1st graders as a fifth graders and taught them about the bugs I used to love so much. But I even ruined that when I tried to stop one of them from picking lady bug cocoons up since it would essentially leave them defenseless to the other ladybugs in the jar. The kid dropped it so fast like his hand was burned. The kids then looked like they all wanted to cry and then ran away.

The other was my fifth grade teacher who I had a crush on. The thing was that I was one of those unfortunate kids who were smart for my but weren't that smart. I didn't feel at home with most of my class but the smart kids excluded me. I was smart of enough to effortlessly go through elementary and middle with good grades but when it mattered I did not even know how to study properly.

So instead I talked to my fifth grade teacher and had a crush that I had to actively think on since I thought of him more as my best friend. Then he betrayed me; called up a parent meeting and said that I was socially impaired because I wouldn't go make friends and kept bugging him. It wasn't that I couldn't tell the social nuances apart but it was that I registered each and every one of them, filed them away and promptly ignored them to go on doing whatever I wanted.

He tried putting on a variety of labels that didn't stick because they were all far fetched. He just wanted me out of his hair.

It also did not help that he would never actually look upset when he reprimanded me and was always so soft spoken. I thought it was light banter between friends although I did notice that he didn't look particularly interested in what I said.

It also didn't help that every time I tried to make an effort with talking with the girls my age was that I would have no idea of what to talk to them about. And my horrible social skills would then blurt out something totally random.

Sadly I always looked like an idiot or a lesbian. It didn't help that one day I actually did try to befriend a lesbian. One day during P.E I saw that a girl was sitting in a corner and crying and I asked her what was wrong, and she replied that her friends didn't want to be her friends anymore since she knew she was lesbian. Long story short I told her I would be her friend and soon afterwards I was betrayed by the girl. It was like a witch hunt. No! I'm not the witch, she is! Later on another girl went so far as say that I was peeking under the stall to look at her because she saw my hair. Hell I was a VERY hyper kid; with really long hair. It probably did drag on the bathroom floor.

All in all my middle school years went like this. 6th grade: I started reading. A boy made fun of me because of it. I made friends with the new girl and she betrayed me to the cool girls who made fun of my clothes. I befriend a chubby boy who became my only friend for the rest of the year and crushed on him.

7th: New boy bully, class icing. I befriend the really quiet boy, get him to open up to me and found out he was a mentally disturbed kid who wanted to kill his family in their sleep. He also had a crush on me so I thought it was a good idea to flirt with another boy in hopes of getting him to get over me. Bad idea. The boy I flirted with changed classes and the first one mysteriously disappeared; probably to get professional help. I like to tell myself that if I hadn't gotten him to open up no one would have found out his homicidal tendencies until it was too late.

8th: I avoided all contact with people and jumped at every word spoken to me like they wanted to insult me.

9th: I became friends with the shy girl who sat next to me throughout the year but since I had the social skills of less than an elementary school kid I was not able to deepen it to the point that I could hang out with a friend. It meant a lot to me during that time though since she was my only friend so we drifted apart very easily.

10th &amp; 11th: I became friends with a group form my church youth program which had eight people in it. I actually became close to them and hang out at public places and actually had small talk with people my age for once. I was ecstatic, I had normal friends for once; who I could chat with normally. Sadly I messed that up to since I had a habit of creepily touch one girls hair a lot; I think she thought I was lesbian and she shunned me. It wasn't like I didn't touch some of the other boys hair too but then again one of the other boys started to avoid me because of that. It did not help that I had a habit of staring at people.

12th: No friends, no life.

Then I was a half-ass-ed freshman in college who only talked to my mom and some cousins...occasionally. Now I read so much that its starting to affect my health; my eyesight is getting worse and my thinking and reading process is slowing down. I sometimes get headaches from not sleeping too. I always had a thing with not remembering things and memories in general and now I have a hard problem remembering things from years ago and even words slip from my grasp.

Its not amnesia I just have a bad memory, and sadly only remember the bad things in life. I read so much, spend too much time in my own little world that my horrible social skills became crippling social anxiety. It also did not help that my thoughts started to feel slow and thick in my head. Too much reading and not enough of actually thinking. Here's a saying that I find remarkable to my life. If you don't use it you lose it. And I think I now read because I don't want to think about anything anymore, and I haven't really thought too hard in two years.

It also did not help that the only person who I actually did talk to was my mom. We're what happens when you try to put out an oil fire with water. We bicker, we rile each other up for every little thing. I wasn't always such a bad daughter its just so hard when your mom tries to rile you up. And explodes for practically random things. Sometimes she finds new things to criticize me about but most of the time its the same things. My horrible posture, my I don't care attitude, and even the way I shower. Its that I don't care its just when you've had someone tell you your whole life that you don't care; and that you're going to grow up addicted to something whether it be sex, drugs, alcohol or gambling. That I'm going to become a horrible addict(gambling) like my dad when I grow up.

That I just don't care about anything, she says she knows how I am but she's been saying that since elementary school. In fifth grade she didn't want me to walk behind her on the stairs(I think she thought I was gonna push her down them), its not that she's crazy or anything its just that I think the packet my fifth grade teacher sent home with me ruined my relationship with her. It essentially went like this "Is your child a psychopath?" Does your child hear voices/ run away from home/ kill small animals?

Which I never did do any of them but she looked at me differently afterwards.

I was a sickly kid, but not in the bad constitution kind of way, the trapped in the hospital kind where I couldn't go out to play. But the kind where I had a weak immune system and got sick every other month. I missed school a lot and my mom had to miss work and got fired a lot. So I'm the reason why she's stuck with a horrible job from her sister's husband's company where everyone there thinks she's there to spy on them. Its not that this thought is not warranted, I've had two aunts who've been run out of the job and family friend who said she could not work in that kind of place (where everyone dogs you) anymore. I owe her everything in the world, I just wish we had a better relationship.

One of my fears when I was younger was the fear that people in scrubs would drag me away during school and shove me into a white room. A nice and quiet and safe room. With nice white, padded walls. In elementary, middle and 9th grade I thought that I should just give up fake a melt down and get it over with. I felt hounded during those days.

So Back on track, I died and was reincarnated but I didn't reincarnate in some RPG like world with OP powers and gathered a sexy harem (in my case reverse harem); I admit I've been reading too many light novels. Instead of another world though I wish I had restarted my life over because it's chalk full of regrets.

P.S: All the boys in my life who actually like me for more than one day are at least a little mentally unstable.


	2. Chapter 2 - 1

This a fan fic of a fan fic Naruto. The Fanfic is Dreaming of Sunshine and its an OC self-insert of the author one Shikako twin of Shikamaru. This story is if I was the one reincarnated as Shikako instead of the original narrator. I'm the less smart person, with bad social skills, bad planing skills and horrible memory. I'll also be a little more crazy and off-hinged than the actual Shikako. And I'm still not sure if I want to be Orochimaro the Second coming.

Chapter 1

I was floating in the abyss. Somewhere dark and cold or was it warm? Out of the nothingness there came a noise or should I say a melody. Above me there was a comforting and slow thrum that I could get lost in. Beside me there was a quick beat that matched my own. It took me awhile to realize that they were heartbeats and that the one above me was my mother but when did I have a twin? Did I reabsorb them in the womb? Is this how my life flashes before my eyes? From the very beginning perhaps.

I remember dieing really randomly; there wasn't even any warning on the news about serial killers or anything. It would be torture if I had to make the same exact mistakes again without being able to change anything. Eventually though it dragged out and it just seemed so _safe_ so long, so _real_. Than I started to think about the possibility that I was reincarnated; maybe God thought that I was too pessimistic for Heaven.

Even if I didn't have any friends then and I didn't really have any motivation or any kind of future; I had a life full of regret. I wanted to fix my relationship with my mom and the people I still held dear even if I didn't talk to them anymore. I sort of wanted to be able to go back in time and redo my life not start a new one. I grieved for myself, for the friends and family that I did have and hoped that I didn't reincarnate too late in my own time line. It would be kind of sad if I searched for them and found them all dead.

I'm worried about my mom the most though since; I was practically her whole life. She worked to support me and she never remarried because she wanted to be a good role model for me. The past 18 years of her life had me in it; and I always wondered what would happen if I ever moved out.

I really tried to motivate myself for my new life but I couldn't really do it. Instead I started wondering about my new sibling; what kind of person they would be. Whether or not if I could be a reliable older sister or a strong younger one. In my old life I had always wanted a sibling ever since I found out that I did indeed have one when I was five but that he was dead. Even in my last days I would wonder how my life would be like if he was alive. With that older brother alive would I have been more motivated to compete in life? Would my mother have been more happy?

I came to love this new and unknown sibling; wanting to become someone important in their life. It wasn't surprising since I was someone who was quick to become attached to people even in my old life. I also wanted to protect them from and give them every thing. This wasn't the first time that I wanted to have a younger sibling, but who was I kidding I had younger cousins that I practically saw every day and I didn't treat them the best that I could.

Always reading when I could play with them. But maybe I just didn't want another younger cousin who looked up to me and then be disappointed; when they realize that I'm not as smart as they thought. I'm incompetent about the world around and even at the end I didn't try to enlighten myself. Or maybe I'm just making excuses even now.

Suddenly I wanted to make them hate me, make them not even bother with getting to know me. If they loved me and found out my deficiencies than how will I feel than?

One day in the middle of my thoughts there was a sudden shift in the womb; it wasn't obvious at first but then I noticed that something had changed. There was a certain pressure, and my world suddenly got tighter. I tried to reach out to my twin, but could do nothing but listen to old familiar sound of the twins heartbeat.

Then I was suddenly struck with anxiety. I didn't want to leave the relative safety that I had found. I tried to do something to stop it; to stay in there for one more day. I tried to do something, anything. I tried to look for my other half but since the nine months of being together I never actually felt the other one brush against me, so we were probably fraternal twins. But I reached anyway; grasping for any kind of comfort.

But my wiggling around probably did do something since I was suddenly the one closer to gravity. I guess that was all for nothing since now I'm suddenly going to be the first one born.

Something was wrong though, instead of feeling safe. It felt constricting. I was pretty sure that I hadn't reached the birth canal yet and an uninviting darkness started to enveloped me. It was terrifying; I was never so afraid of the _dark_.

I blinked and everything was so blurry. Babies really do have bad eye sight huh? So boring.

My first breath in this new life _burned_ yet it felt humid at the same time. It felt like I was drowning in lava. The only thing in my life before that I could compare it to was when I was little and in a pool; and off my noodle I fell and promptly sank to the bottom. I felt detached and mutely alarmed as my first breath seemed to make my sight become bright and shimmery like it was the sun through the chlorine of a pool. As I drew in oxygen the mirage seemed to disappear and become blurry again.

I feel so sleepy, my eyes drooped and didn't brother crying. But humongous hands kept on poking and prodding me; and clearing my nose. I guess they were checking to see if I was okay. Then something happened. Green light seemed to come from those hands and I dimly thought whoa_ magic! So cliché._ Am I in some crappy and unbelievable world with monsters and adventurers? Where mutated animals decimate whole villages if they aren't protected? Life just a whole lot harder and crappier in my mind.

Breathing in this new life was crap, I kept on wondering if I had asthma or something. But that wasn't all there was; not only could I feel this weird disturbance in the air as I breathed in but also under my skin. Like I had literal bugs crawling under it and in my organs and that I could feel deep in my bones. It felt like winter time cold seeping into your bones but it was more lukewarm. More alive somehow.

But feeling it actually moving around in my body felt unnerving and disgusting. It just felt unnatural. It made me want to cry all the time and when I wasn't crying I shivered. Bringing the saying that my skin crawled to a whole new level. That probably only added to the affect that something was wrong and that I sick.

I wanted to tell my new parents to help me. To yell at them. To communicate with someone. To be rid of this feeling; to heal me with their magic. How can they not notice that one of their kids was in pain especially with how much I was crying, practically screaming myself exhausted everyday.

I think it was more of my screaming than the actual skin crawling that was starting to affect not only my physical health but my new parents' mental health too. So when I was around a week old they brought me to the hospital to be examined. Since they both went to the appointment they also brought my other sibling along and somehow it felt alright. My sibling gave me this feeling of familiar safety. Of nine months in the womb; safe and secure and not alone.

It wasn't like I could actually see him with my weak baby eyes but I could _sense_ him. Somehow I knew that he was a boy the same way I could tell when it was my new mother or father even before they entered the door way to my room. Strange how I didn't notice this fact until I reunited with my brother. I guess they separated me from him since they didn't want me to wake him? Or something.

By the time we were at the hospital though, I had finally stopped crying. The doctors were saying a bunch of things but I couldn't understand anything of course. Something about it kept on niggling me in the back of my head. Then I heard the words Chakra and Nara. Everything else was a indecipherable but those words stood out. They weren't even in the same sentence. Then my mind went from that to the fact that the two people who were now my new parents saying the words Shikaku and Yoshino around each other a bunch of times clicked. They were names and, and … I remember what they called me, Shikako. I didn't suddenly learn the language or anything like that but I finally realize how exactly familiar their words were. Although I'm American I watched a lot of anime and although I never learned the language from that since that would have been unrealistic. I recognize a few commonly used phrases on animes in the life around me.

But OH Shit! Not only am I in Naruto-Universe, I'm in the DOC-Universe. I know its not a paradox since I remember from one chapter that she had younger siblings that she had actually met and taken care of. So I'm not the narrator of the original DOC-UNIVERSE.

How will I ever meet up to her intelligence and actions and Social Skills? How can I teach Naruto to be strategic and convince Sasuke to stay? How will I stay alive? In my past life I had horrible hand-eye coordination. I'll probably poke myself in the eye with my own kunai the first time I use one. I have horrible memories and bad planning skills. How will I think smartly? Is that even a word? I'm freaking out and I'm screaming my lungs out again since someone took Shikamaru out of the room.

This had made me rethink the reincarnation thing. Am I actually dreaming this whole world up? When I think this over and consider how realistic my dreams. How when I was younger I sculpted my ability to realize when I was dreaming and even change the direction I wanted it to go. How eventually my dreams adapted to that and started to become complex. Now I dream not in short dream-like clips but in movies and epics. My dreams even foreshadow and drop hints that lead to revelations at the end. Not only that but I even dream of being different people and in different worlds. So far as giving myself whole backgrounds and and even a set of memories. One time I woke up from being half asleep and still half thinking this guy's internal monologue.

I could believe it if this was all a dream. A coma induced, self-prolonged dream to occupy my semi-brain dead mind from going off the deep end.

Later I even learned that just by being here, I had already changed the DOC-UNIVERSE. Shikamaru was supposed to be born first; he's still technically older since he was the first out of the womb but there's some people of the clan that believe that I should be the clan heir since I was halfway through the birth canal already. I caused my own near death already by twisting myself in my own umbilical cord which had required an emergency medical jutsu C-section.

I guess you could say that I'm lucky in a way since I wasn't reincarnated as Shikamaru. There would have been so much worse. I can't even imagine how I could have stood up to those expectations never mind having the male parts.

Three weeks after I was born or at least I thought it was, going by the light cycles through the windows.

The days went by that I even forgot this event. There was a flavor in the chakra in the air that felt different. Like it could unravel my skin, muscles, and splinter blood vessels into nothing. Was this the killing intent? The blood thirst that I only knew of as fiction in my past life?

It felt like mind numbing rage and pure, unadulterated HATRED but somehow...

Somehow it also felt really lonely and sad. The kind of sadness and loneliness and self isolation that screams of regrets and tends to border insanity. I felt something that I haven't felt in years; the need to reach out to someone because they seemed so lonely and that loneliness resonates with my own heart and not just because I need someone to be my friend. I wanted to help. I wanted to reach out to this person's pain and take it away.

I instinctively knew that this must be the Kyuubi's chakra and killing intent. Yes it scared the hell out of me but it also made me feel sad. It brought up memories of self-loathing and even earlier memories of trusting people unconditionally. It reminded me that I was very much like Naruto when I was little; believing the best in people and quickly making friends with everyone but unlike Naruto my social graces although lacking like his never did rub people the _right_ way like his did.

I'm also not sure if I want to be bene/malevolent character. But I will be seen as at least a little crazy by the other characters.


	3. Chapter 3 - 2

Some ideas based on last time. Should I befriend Kurama? If so I might just give him a body that Naruto can summon. But that won't happen until way later after Naruto meets the sage and befriends Naruto.

For now though I'm thinking about milking the child hood arc alot though since when I read DOC I was disappointed at how much it was focused on looking normal. I'm gonna be the smart and eerie kid, maybe. But I do know that I'm going to concentrate on seals and summons more since seals in DOC were already explained to my main character(me) when she read it right before her death. I might also be bending it alot since I just love where this can go. If you asked me what one super power I want it would be the ability to create people out of nothing.

Chapter 2

Yeah I was kind of thinking all of this about the Kyuubi while the actual attack and through Shikamaru crying next to my ear since Shikaku and Yoshino figured out that I cried less with him next to me. I know its kind of weird of thinking about them by their names but it feels weird calling them mom or dad. It feels weird in their own way since in my past life I never actually called anyone by the title Dad before. And mom since my own concept of my mom is still clearly defined. Not this large eyed doe of a woman who calls herself Yoshino.

So for the next 6 months I try to train my chakra control, moving it around and channeling it. Making my blanket stick to my skin like magic. Mostly though since I was really, really bored I tested my chakra sense that came with being reincarnated with chakra. Seeing how far it could go, maybe get the radius to get bigger.

Then I started to experiment with it; to see if I could distinguish, remember and the chakra signatures of the people walking in the street in front of the house. I started to obsessively go into detail, going to lengths to even tell related people sort on the street since related people have similar signatures.

After a while with this weird form of people watching evolved strangely, I started to get impressions from people. I wasn't exactly reading their minds or looking through their memories. But I think that I was going through their chakra and the chakra of the people that they spent alot of time with. I could even after a long time of practice and patience I could even get an impression of the person I'm reading, as in literally getting to see their face without having to actual meet them in person. Handy I guess for a ninja.

By the time I was six months not only could I see better but I could also see the faces of the friends and family and even every day acquaintances of the chair signature I was searching.

Relearning to roll over, crawl, walk and talk were alot harder than most reincarnation fiction sells it as. Even though my mind or spirit or whatever was that of a young adult. My body was a babies I had to relearn how to use everything, get my new body to the appropriate level of control.

The pathways of my young brain needed connecting. And although I grasped concepts much quicker than Shikamaru, it felt strange consciously knowing that I should know this or that about the basics of the world but didn't. My dreams though were another story, they were as clear and concise as made me think. Us my mind in this world relates and relies on the body as much as the my old world? And vice versa?

There were genjutsus that happen in your mind but affected the body also. By the time we were 2 we both knew how to talk, learning how to talk though made me remember that this body wasn't mine and that it was smarter than mine. I sucked at learning languages. I had took three years of French and I never did learn to actually speak it. And by the third year I was beginning to forget the things I learned earler on.

This one took up speaking faster than Shikamaru did and when I think about it if there were different languages in this world this one probably would have been one of those people that were bi-linguist and loved it.

All it did was seem to high light how I wasn't smart in my old life and that I wasn't helping myself by giving myself headaches from so much computer time. It kind of made me depressed and if it wasn't for Shikamaru. I kept on dragging him around pushing him to go beyond his own already fast pace.

Pulling him around with me, getting him interested in learning to read at the same time as me. This was when I truly realized how smart Shikamaru was, even without motivation he seemed to excel in learning the written language.

At first we learned at the same pace, being tutored in the lap of our father as he read to us. In the middle of it he seemed to drop interest in learning in the middle of it. I thought that it was his classic troublesome attitude.

Then he started to automatically know when I needed help on this or that word. Peeked over my shoulder telling me the right definition of the word without even having to know the context of the passage.

This made me think that Shikamaru could have had top marks in the Academy even if he did nothing but sleep all day. That he just wasn't motivated and probably didn't want to attract attention or maybe graduate before Choji.

One day when we still two and Shikamaru was cloud watching in the courtyard. I with a book/scroll? in hand promptly landed on the middle of his stomach with a whphh noise. We sat there together for a while me reading about history which weren't full of just dates and historical figures in wigs, and Shikmaru just staring off into the sky.

I asked him to help me with something. He replied, "With words?" I nodded my head, jumped up and ran into the house only to come back out with a pile of scrolls and note books.

You're going to help me make a new language!

The only thing he said to me was troublesome before he let his hand fall back onto the ground.

I know its pretty sad that Shikamaru had to help me but I just didn't remember all the rules. I had all the basic grammar and vocabulary down but Shikamaru seemed to pick up on my half formed thought and words and helped fill in the blanks for me.

We at the age of two created the English language in all its complexities. I kind of worried about the future. About Jiraiya and possibly decoding the English language without a source. And what better excuse than a secret made up twin language by the smartest boy in the whole world and his sister?

When we were three I used my excuse of my love for literature and classical Japanese to get me to the libraries and archives I needed to start my research on seals. Sure it didn't get me anywhere but the private Nara ones and they were just the basic of the basics. But thinking about DOC the other higher security stuff probably didn't have much else since it was all about your mind or improvising. Or was it imagination?

Then I either brought the scrolls home or my notes on them and asked Shika to help me. All he did was watch the skies on his back as I asked for his opinion but he gave me some very choice words on the matter. Soon we had collected and compared and cross examined each of the main sealing branches comparable if not greater than the original Shikako did since I knew that without help I probably wouldn't be able to get the cool and clinical Nara feel down on paper. The only thing I did do all by myself was the messy timeline of the world's very short history.

All throughout making a language together and studying seals I also practiced chakra, measuring the amount and rate of which I expelled it. I practiced with my clothes, blankets, leaves, when I held things and when I walked. I practiced, practiced again excessively inbetween the time of my other occupations. In my past life I was the master of multitasking since I read books everywhere. Walking up and down the stair's, while eating and even could relatively listen in class while listening. Although as I got older, the last one got harder(in my past life since I wasn't too old now but then again I was only 18). Or really it was getting harder to pull myself out of my own head, here and now though I just needed to center myself and my center was Shika.

I even bugged Shika to do it with me, in the middle of remaking English and to no surprise though he got it down pat before I did. I couldn't fold a paper crane with it but I could make more simple air plane with my chakra. Maybe it was a cultural difference? But like I said before I was really good at multitasking.

So one day before we had started on the seal research I made a dozen or so airplanes, attached chakra strings to them and watched as I watched as a mini air force light show around above me. They were twirling and whirling around in the air. Then suddenly I had a face full of scroll and all my airplanes crashed right be for they could reach the roof of the house. Shika had used a chakra string to throw one of the scrolls I was reading earlier back in front of my face with the excuse that I was ruining his view of the sky. It was a sunny day.

Now back to the present. We're three years old and Shika is cloud watching again. I was in a green and brown dress with a pair of Shika's blue pants on underneath. I was reading about bijuu myths once again with my notebook on top of his stomach using it as a table as I scritch down ideas about sealing on it. The day went by passively very much like the airplane race that was being held above our heads. My write hand with a brush, my left with a chakra string. Shika somehow managed it without seemingly moving his hand. His participation in the rave practically unnoticeable except for the slight twitch of his pinky.

A very normal day in the Commander of Jonins; stretches in the morning and reading and cloud watching spent in the back yard.


	4. Chapter 4 - 3

I'm sorry that the wording of the beginning of this is a little complicated and off putting but later in this chapter there will be the story behind the title of this fanfic.

I'm not always going to update this quickly but I was inspired by Silver Queen.

I'm sorry Silver Queen, but I was trying to explain that I was reincarnated into the DOC universe that I was claiming that this was that fan fiction. Since this is a fan fiction of a fan fic so I felt the need to explain.

Chapter 3

I used to push my glasses up at the corners, and now I still do. A phantom reminder that this is another body. A different life. Where every bad habit I had haunts my every step. Another thing was being taken care of; being helpless when you expect to be able to clean yourself, dress yourself. I wasn't over conscious of my naked body in front of my new parents, after all I had the body of a baby but it felt weird as you expect your body to respond to your commands and not trip all over your feet.

Ah, sorry I kind of gone off into tangents. Let me tell you about my new life; about me as a Nara.

Family life as Shikako was orderly as expected. There were things that I expected everyday, a sort of routine: breakfast with the family and the stretches before it. Chilling with Shika in the courtyard or some roof top during lunch time and the evenings before the sunset. Wandering the streets of Konoha the rest of the day; roaming the streets and playing "Ninja" with other kids. Learning to play shogi and go. Remembering when I played chess in fifth grade in my other life. I still have horrible planning and strategy-making skills even for a Nara sadly. Especially when it comes to myself and pressure. It was the same with chess I was horrible at it she I actually played but when I watched other people play; I could suddenly see what was the best course of action. I guess I need to practice seeing the big picture if I hope to be able to think strategically one day.

In my past life I never really had any hobbies like listening to popular songs. I didn't even bother learning the lyrics to the anime theme songs I did like. Like school I was half-assed with everything I did. I said I loved books but I didn't bother with remembering titles and authors. If I had been confronted with a fellow book lover I probably would have broke down.

But as Shikako I rekindled my past joy of singing happily albeit a little off tune. I didn't even care that these kid songs were supposed to have a double meaning. As Shikako I remembered a lot of the things I used to enjoy, from taking naps to playing in the grass. Yes, I did everything I could to learn about the world around me instead bringing about a self-induced and limited world. I learned to climb tees with and without the help of chakra (not tree walk). Which I had never learned to do in my past life since the trees I had acces to were stunted and/or docile (And really bad coordination). Even so I caught bugs and released them the next day. I remembered the fact that I used to cry for them whenever someone mushed a bug.

I'm not sure how Shikaku and Yoshino are reacting to us. Although we were being discrete (especially in our secret language), we weren't actively hiding what we were doing from them. If they have noticed how exactly strange the two of us are they haven't shown it in the way they interact with us. We're still little babies to them (which we were). But still those paper airplanes weren't piloting themselves and chakra strings are visible. Maybe they're just chalking it up to us being precocious twins that came from a ninja family. Since I've seen some books/scrolls on the subject of twins from Ninja families. Although I haven't seen anything that would indicate ninja-born twins being smarter than normal but there has been evidence that they sometimes did have an uncanny ability to read each other thoughts or some other twin paranormal-ability. Also there were things from history and myths that hinted at this or that speculation.

As Shikako I could love Shikaku and Shikamaru wholeheartedly without hesitation. Maybe it was because I never had anyone fall in that particular category in my heart in my first life, but this fact also negatively affected my relationship with Yoshino. I kept on seeing an after image of my mom overlap her every time I saw Yoshino, and flinch. My mom always preached that a mother was the only person in the whole world who would love you unconditionally. That everyone else who smiled and laughed along with you was actually laughing at you, deep down inside their heart.

When we were around the speaking age, I started to call this body's parents by their given names but it came out half-formed and childish. It still felt weird calling them mom and dad. I called them Ku and No instead. Simple words for a baby learning their first language. Which had somehow stuck and it became a sort of a tradition the house. Me and Shika would call our parents No and Ku; and they would pick fun of the ending of our names. Calling us Maru and Ko. And we would then make fun of their naming sense. Shika even once jokingly half-reasoned that if I were a boy we would have been Maru and Taro instead. Or even worse if we went into the same vein as our own names, Shikamami and Shikato.

And one day Yoshino at the dinner table revealed to us that they had found out our genders and birth order (with something akin to an ultra sound jutsu?). That she had wanted to name me Hikari with her dry humor. (Light and shadow; one could not exist without the other or something along those lines) Shikaku during that time though rejected this and when he tried to concede the point by suggesting to name me Shikari; Yoshino had just given him a look. Ku though with his lazy naming sense ended up wanting to have twins with the same name scheme.

But sometimes when it was just No and me in a private conversation; I would pull back. When she praised me I searched for a non-existent double meaning. Sometimes I even went so far as avoid her. I knew it broke her heart, her own daughter hated her for no apparent reason. I kept telling myself the things drilled into me in my past life._ Blood is thicker than anything else in the world. Only your own blood cares about you like that. Only a mother loves you the way only a mother can love unconditionally. _

I kept repeating this to myself but I could never think like this toward Yoshino. I knew I was being ridiculous and irrational but the more I repeated this to myself the more the situation got worse. The best thing I _could_ do was school my reactions to her. It was easier in the family of four setting but I just couldn't connect to her in a personal level. I kept seeing her as something _other._

All girls and women loved to gossip and sometimes even back stab each other. But Asian women were the worst. I guess this behavior stemmed from my past life when I was younger and the Asian Aunties would poke and prod not only with their looks but also with their words and inquiries. Looking for any sign of weakness to take advantage of. Even young girls and teens were equipped double bladed words and soft laughs that burned with the social graces to make none of it looks intentional.

Everyone is out looking to drag your reputation through the mud. (Everyone is out to get you.) I keep expecting to hear these words whispered in my ear.

This is why I'm dreading Kunoichi classes, all the girls there will somehow sense my incompetence. But still I've never had life-long female friendships like between Ino, Sakura and Shikako had in the DOC-Universe that I read about. Where Shikako's presence was the one thing that kept their friendship together. I didn't want their friendship to die like it did in canon. Even if they did reconcile later on I didn't think it was ever quite the same.

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One day when we were three and sometime after the Great Air force show had flopped, I suddenly had the inspiration to ask Shika why he liked to cloud watch so much. I tried to explain to him that it didn't seem boring exactly but that it wasn't all that exciting like playing games. Somehow reincarnating, living as a kid again has rekindled my inner child. I wasn't as hyper as I was as a kid in my past life but my old curiosity of the world had reawakened. I wanted to go catch butterflies and lady bugs. Watch ants and yes watch the blue sky sometimes with Shikamaru. But I just didn't see the fun of _always_ watching the clouds.

"What's so interesting about the sky, Shika?" I said to him as we were cloud watched until lunch was ready.

Shika seemed to search my face for a moment, up on an elbow in the grass. Looking as if he was going to retort with something a little more than snarky. And told me not to ask something "so troublesome" and tried to go back to cloud watching. I said the word _tried_ since I aspired to annoy the hell out of him until I got an answer out of him. So I lazily rolled in the grass out of my spot directly next to him and stopped on my stomach so that the two of us made a straight line. Him facing the sky; my face blocking his view of the clouds and propped up on my elbows.

"Tell me, Ma~mi-cha~n. Drawing out the syllables of his most hated pet name that I used when I wanted to really annoy. Even if he didn't visually show that it irritated him but I've spent every day together with him. Trying to decipher his facial features. It was really hard to tell if how he _acted_ was what he _felt._

Shika seemed to sigh before scrunching up his face in the mock confrontational style that I've come to personally see; not just behind a screen.

"No, tell me, Kato-bo. Is there anything better?" Shika used the not so common honorific; the one usually directed at young boys as opposed to the equal age -kun. Shika had quickly learned that I didn't really mind the -kun honorific whether it was used on our real names or nicknames. Some of the kids we played "Ninja" with even called me Ko-kun which I thought complimented my tomboy nature.

He knew that it would shut me up for the moment. Three grueling minutes later I yelled something that was akin to _I'll show you_! Took my scroll on summoning(we had started to work out summoning around this time) to work on it in another corner. There wasn't all that much on this particular scroll so I had quickly gotten bored. I stared at the sky in my corner of the yard. Taking in the blue sky in its entirety. _Darn_. What _could_ be better than this? I thought flippantly philosophical.

I thought about this for a whole week. Drifting off, drawing myself into my own little world again. Dropping rice off my chopsticks during meals. Staring off into space. Being easily preoccupied or easily distracted. We practically avoided each other for the whole week. Or at least as the closest thing to avoidance that two three year olds that lived in the same house, played in the same circles, shared the same courtyard, and had rooms right next to each other could. On the sixth night as I was mulling it over in bed, moonlight shining into the room. Since I had the blinds open since for some reason I'm now afraid of the dark. It seemed that playing with bugs wasn't the only thing that reawaked when I became a kid again.

So I watched as the moonlight pooled at the foot of the bed, as it gathered in the creases of cloth. I looked out the window and there the moon sat, large in the frame of my window. I had an inkling of an idea flicker in my head. I climbed out of bed, opened the window and well. I couldn't really use chakra to help me climb the walls of the house yet. Although I practiced chakra control alot so much that it became an automatic, almost passive thing to do that when I picked up things and walked I used chakra. And I beat/annoyed/dragged Shika around so much that I think that everything I could do he could too and probably even better. I think its also building up my chakra reserves but I can't really tell.

I didn't know how to suddenly start walking up the walls of my house without looking suspicious and I wasn't so good at it anyway. The only thing I've done is use chakra to help me stick to trees while I climbed tehm. Luckily though there was a tree not too far from my window, and as adeptly as a three year old can which is kind of clumsily. So I looked a little like a baby monkey going up that thing. I reached the roof and you know who I found? Nope not mommy or daddy or even an Anbu agent coming to reprimand me but Shikamaru already there. Stargazing.

My first thought was that he was moon watching since this world's culture was eerily similar to Japan's (as in moon watching festival). But then I noticed that similar to how he cloud watched. He took all of the night sky in. Absorbed it. Enjoyed it. Enjoyed the simplicity of it all. The simplicity of something that wasn't simple after all.

It took me a full minute to take this all in, hanging there on the edge of the roof. And since Shika doesn't have the same chakra sense that I do; this was how long it took for him to notice me. And pulled my answer right out from under me with a:

"If it takes you this long to think about something as easy as this then. How are you going to survive when we're out in the field?" -Shika

I'm stunned. My jaw probably hit the roof.

Was Shika always this good at reading and then predicting people? I mean at this early age... Or did he come out here every night for the past week? I had planned to slip a note written in English under his door in the morning to meet him the following night on the roof. But he made it unnecessary.

After that we didn't talk about anything else just stargazed for an hour or two before going back to bed.

I looked at the stars... Although I never learned astronomy in my past life so I have no idea what to look for but some stars had a special place in my heart. In my past life, when I was little my mom would point out three stars in a little row and called them mom, my deceased brother and me. I used look up at the sky and always remember that although not so much later on in my life...

I never had really stargazed neither in this life or the last but this.. Now that I look up at this world's night sky, it's just beautiful. There's so many stars. I know because there's not a lot of electricity here but it looks almost like the Milky Way but at the same time it didn't. I'm kind of disappointed though, I can't find my trio of stars. I started to cry; not large breathy heaves but with silent tears. Maybe Shikamaru will think I'm a bad loser...Or something. But I went to bed that night a little lighter.

Author's notesss: I know it sucks that the relationship between Yoshino and her daughter came out so crappy but I'm hoping to do something about it. Any suggestions?

In this world Shika is still as unmotivated as ever but with a hyper little/older sister that dragged him around doing things well lets just say he was a genius with untapped potential in the old world.

Yes, cause and effect since Shikamaru is using his brain intensively at a young age he's of cource smarter than me and maybe canon and probably even knows more about the world around them than this DOStar's Shikako (me in the story).

I'm pretty sure in cannon everyone didn't go to the Academy until they were eight usually. But I'm going to stick to DOSun's story line and make them go at five. More possibilities that way. Also I don't think Sasuke and Naruto were ever in an orphanage.

Kakashi and Itachi were friends right? Or at least Anbu teammates around the time Sasuke was 5 right? And became Itachi became captain when Sasuke was 7. I know I can't prevent the Uchiha annihilation or else Kakashi will be Anbu forever and Danzo will be in an position of importance, and with root member going around kidnapping kids to recruit which would be bad for my character and probably Shika. We gotta be on the down low until we're seven.

Does anyone know about the monkey summons? Like if the third ever gave it out to anyone. Or the name of Monkey land. Or the names of the other monkeys or even their naming schemes since I'm totally lost. Cause I don't want to start out with Enma right of the bat. Don't tell me their names all start with En- right? Narutepedia was not helpful at all...

Should I include Yota? He didn't come around until they were 7 though but I'm not sure. Pre or after Uchiha downfall? I wish he wasn't dead though and controlled by Orochimaru.

Can you guys leave me comments? Is reviews the only way to get comments? What about individual chapters? I'm new and I'm wondering if I can fix this.. I might have disabled it? The wording was weird. Oh yea the anom comments.

Note the things my character shares with you is true. I don't have any hobbies I don't half ass.


	5. Chapter 5 - 4

I promised crazy and I havn't provided yet I know. But the only crazy babies can do is cry all day and that's already done. So here it is crazy but you might not see that until the end of the chapter or maybe the next?

I'm sorry for the mess I might not edit for a while but its not too bad just a few misspellings

Chapter 4

The night of our fourth birthday, Shika slept in my room since well we fell asleep. Was it because our little kid bodies couldn't handle staying up late? Hell no it was because we suddenly passed out cold on the floor of my bedroom. I didn't think the experiment would have side effects. I hope they didn't have any bad side effects... that lasted.

My seals were in japanese, at first I thought that having it in a language I've known for longer would make them stronger. But I decided that japanese would have to do since I'm in this world now. And that it might have a stronger affect for this world. My notes on my research are still in english though; I don't even need to encode it.

Since that night under the stars, me and Shika would sometimes go up onto the roof to watch the satrs and it ws one of those nights that we had planned a sort of competion. Who could make the better project? It needed to be well thought through since it still needed to meet the parameters of a birthday present since that was the deadline too.

These weren't going to be our first projects (which I will further explain later on) but it will be the first time we make something new by ourselves. But the two of us had created our own style of sealing where we make our own chakra ink and even infused scrolls with our chakra and gave it our _intent_. The secret to getting it right would be to experiment. Experiment with the differnt levels and amounts of chakra the ink would need and although not everything I wanted to do had to have a large difference in chakra. But if you want to do something differnet it needed different concentrations of chakra. That's why I had a stock of chakra inks with varying levels. You should see my room there's research scrolls and random tubs of chakra ink strewn about in it now. Yoshino is always nagging me to clean it up or at least to organize it better.

During our birthday dinner I had passed Shika a note (in English) to meet me up in my room since I had set up my present in there. And that he should bring his present too. So after dinner we both trudged up the stairs and we went to my room straight away. He didn't go to his room to get his present so I just assumed that he had it on him already.

After the both of us were in I closed the door and sealed my room with the characters for _permitted silence_. It would prevent the noice of the door suddenly being opened or closed from entering the room. Shikaku and Yoshino didn't permit us to lock our rooms anymore ever since that one we had use seals on our body, although those usually happened in the yard. But it would allow noice or more specificly words to be said in the room. I wrote to Shika on a notepad to not speak and to use the note pad. And signaled to him to go first with his present since mine would probably take longer.

He took a small scroll out from under his t-shirt. So how did he fit a scroll from under his regular green t-shirt characteristic of him from before he became a genin? The answer is simple, one of our earlieriest projects was a seal that gave casual clothes the same capacities as ninja wear (as if it had a bunch of pockets). The shirt didn't need any pockets to go off on. At first it was a simple japanese vertical sentence meaning _More to it than seen at the first glimpse_. But it became more complicated, we kept having to add more lines to it. We always left our seals with space in mind since we believed that they were never going to be finished, that there is always room for improvement. To give it the ability to organize itself and allow the user to send some chakra with the _intent_ and it would put the seeked for object to the foremost. The seal itself is pretty large but its compressed so that the only character you see is the one for _pocket_. Its on a piece of cloth sown onto the shirt at the back to the neck so it looks like the shirts tag. Which he had sown onto every shirt in his wardrobe. Personally I don't really use it that much and only a few of my dresses have them(since they don't have pockets) because I just put regular pocket sized objects into my pants(and only the original design, I'm not sure how much Shika has modified it).

OK back on topic so Shika took out a small scroll, unrolled it. And what I saw awed me because what I saw on the scroll in his small, scrawling handwriting were designs for something with the purpose of being _alive_. The seal was simple in a way; it seemed to be some unorganized mess that somehow also teemed with direction. No. In a direction. What I saw on there would go into something that needed to breath, to eat, and to sleep. Not just _imitate and simulate_ these behaviors but actually _do_ it, _need_ it. What Shika had done in two months is what I've been trying to achieve for the past year. A Construct.

I briefly skimmed the contents of the scroll and was impressed. Not only was the intensive study and knowledge of the antonomy of whatever he wanted to make would be needed to be put into this seal, this construct of this kind of complexity but it seemed that it seemed that he had given it a rudimentary intelligence beyond that of a regular cat. It seemed that it would even be able to learn how to speek. The parameters of its intelligence, instincts and behavior though would be very similar to a regular cat, but who knows? It could learn and could probably become at least as smart as a human toddler. Hopefully it wouldn't suddenly come to hate humanity like that movie about A.I.s that I had seen in my past life.

Shika then handed me a pearing knife to cute my finger with since in the middle of this sprawling mess was something akin to a summoning circle. On the note pad that Shika had shoved in front of my face was instructions. It seemed that I wasn't actually summoning anything, hence the living script, but that I would still need to squeeze a drop of blood out onto the circle since I needed it to imprint on me personally. He wrote that I would need to feed it and look after it. That gave me a hint as to what kind of animal it would be. It also seemed that it could get injuries and die like any other animal and that it was indeed water proof. A while back we did experiment with making different kinds of actual regualr ink for a brief while. That if it died it would revert back to its original scroll form and if you resummoned it, it would be with a clean slate. It's memories and any growth it had gone through would be gone. It could even grow, and it would even search for bigger, empty scrolls to settle on without any prompting from me.

I poked my finger and let a drop of my blood drip onto the circle, leading to the whole expanded seal to glow and twist. Compressing to a point until all that was left was the orginal summoning circle and in the middle were the character for _female cat_. And the words underneath it was what suprised me the most. For looking as if I had signed it myself was my name, Nara Shikako, a sprawling signature. I hadn't written that.

And in a poof of chakra smoke came a black and deep red kitten that could fit in the size of my palm. Looking up at me from the table with its big, wet green eyes. I just couldn't resist, I scooped it up into my arms and started to stroke its realistic looking fur. The fur felt soft and warm to the touch and it yielded to me when I scratched it underneath its neck, arching its back while it purred in content. Or at least it seemed to since I couldn't hear it through the seal on the room but I could feel the vibrations through my hand.

Shika wasn't the kind to play with or try to bring home stray cats with us from our adventures outside the walls of our home. I was, but sadly I was allergic to the cuties. In my past life I wasn't allergic to cats or dogs. I remember being little and wanting a dog. I got one, I took care of it. Fed it, walked it. But it never seemed to settle down, to become a pet dog. It would tear up the house and nip at fingers until they bleed. My mom eventually returned it to the pound and forbade me from getting a new one. Good riddance I had thought at the time but eventually I became lonely for a pet again. When I was 15 I started to gravitate towards the neighborhood feral cats. Semi-taming them, they were elusive and almost fickle. But they seemed to have such strong and individual personalities; look at you so deeply. It seemed as if they were self-aware.

This love of cats had seemed to bleed into this life too. I petted them and brought one home and denied it when I was confronted by Yoshino that the cat I had brought home was causing me to become sick. Eventually I had to give it away. I had wanted to release it in the neighborhood so that it could wander and maybe I would catch a glimpse of it but the possibility that it would come back looking for food won out.

Shika might have made me this cat because of this but it might have also been because of something else too and the words I read off the note pad confirmed it. Around the time I had to give up the cat, the both of us were working on a possible combat seal. One that would enhance stealth, quicken reflexes. This one was my project though so like in the organized pocket dimension was Shika's. He helped me like I had helped him on his. Giving out ideas and advice without intruding on one another's projects and the directions they would go. He even let me test it out on him. That was his mistake since not only had I designed it with cat-like reflexes in mind but also literal cat features.

So I made Shika take off his shirt and lay on his stomach, his arms around his face, as I used a special mixture of chakra ink, Shika's and my blood to wirte the seal. It had encompassed his whole entire back and even the back of his arms and legs and even his neck. When I activated it, and it slowly compressed. My hand over the seal sending chakra with my _intent_. Of how it should act out its directives on his body. It twirled and writhed and abruptly left but a single line _Nekokaburi_, Cat Veil, written vertically over his spine surrounded by static shadow tendrils.

It's name I based on the fact that although it likened the body's refelxes to that of a cat. It was also a technique that would help in both stealth and intimidation. Just like a cat; when it wants to it can intimidate its rivals and when a cat wanted to it could slip right into the shadows and dissapear right into the night.

It's use was based on emotional distress and instincts and triggers on the use of chakra from the user and react to killing intent found in the environment or from the user. But its actual design, well, I had kept in mine its possibilty to compliment the Nara family's Shadow techniques. If anyone asks why its psysical/visual manifestation involved not only cloaking the user with shadow-like ink tendrils but also shadow-like cat ears, tails and eyes.

So when I told Shika to channel some chakra through his body; shadowy ink started to billow out and surround him. It cloaked him like I intended it to both his body and his prescence. Sort of. It didn't actually make his chakra dissappear from my chakra sense but it somehow compelled me look away from him. To look in another direction. And Shika started to move his arms about and commented that it seemed like it was working. That his reflexes seemed to be indeed faster, quickly jumping and climbing up a tree and asked questions about how I had achieved to make it work since the last time he had looked at it I hadn't gone to this part yet.

"Its structure and instincts are all based on an animal," I had said.

"Which animal?" Shika had inqueired looking back around at me. Oh, When he had seen my face, my barely contained laughter. The look he had on. It was priceless. He looked at me as if to say _what's so funny_?

He didn't get it until I had pulled out the hand mirror I had on me just for this purpose, right out from one of _his_ 'pockets,' and handed it to him.

Shika took in the shadow ears and the vertical slits in his eyes, an inky slash like the stroke of a brush. He pointed one of his cool, I don't really care, looks at me and asked me to dispel it. As if that fooled me, he was all but demanding it.

I had argued back that Shika now had something in his arsenal that others didn't and I had a way to read him easier. Win, win. Neither of us had anything to lose from it right?

He gave me back the mirror and walked away. I glanced at the surface and was suprised at what I saw. I had never really_ looked_ at myself in the mirror. I always assumed I would look like Yoshino like all the fan art I had seen in my past life. Whereas Shika had vaguely Shikaku's face shape with the contours of Yoshino's making it essentially wider than Shikaku's. My own face was Yoshino's face with the sharp feature's of Shikaku's. It essentially meant that Shika and I looked uncannily similar. We didn't look like faternal twins. One boy, one girl. We looked like identical twin boys. Sure I looked a little more androgynous, but you could account that to my hair. My hair was the same exact legnth as Shika but I kept it down. I didn't even have bangs like the original Shika, and in a certain light my hairstyle could be very similar to a young boy's. Our eyes were also eerily similar. If Shika didn't always look at the world through half-lids then it might have been more like mine. Although I did have longer eye lashes; but it only worked to make myself look even more andrognymous.

He would eventually learn to master it, to control it like the way he schooled his facial expressions. Carefree and laid back. Steady waters but underneath the surface, the waves were rolling. But unlike his calm and collected intellect, he would ever rarely use it on the battlefield. But it was still there, to be used if he needed. The only evidence it was even there would be a flash of ink in his brown eyes whenever we bickered as siblings do.

Three months later, back in the present of my bedroom. As I looked at the supspcious note, seemingly innocent. As Shika further entailed what my new pet cat could do in the written language. I would of cource need to feed it and train it to not rip up things with its nails like a real kitten but it would also virtually be following me around everywhere. Without me it would either quickly become depressed or go into a kitty frenzy.

It would have a diet high in chakra and ink and a dash of my blood (I thought the cats dark red fur looked suscious). Every five hours for the next five months; as it goes through its baby and starts it's adolescence stage and grows into its awareness of self. Its gender will always be the same as its castor and it could even have children although that part is only in theory. It was essentially like baby-sitting a kitten shaped kid that would follow me around like a baby duck for most of its life. Its mental capabilities and growth might be slightly faster than an actual human child but only slight. Eventually it will as it grows older and stronger and moves from scroll to scroll until its settles into its perferred sized. Which could be anywhere from a large but normal domesticated cat to the size of a panther where it will then gain the ability to detach itself from me withoutht worry. Which I admit _sounds_ really cool but wont even happen until at least six more years.

I knew it. Its pay back for_ Nekokaburi_ isn't it? It even happened the same. We both signed binding contracts for life without learning what exactly it would entail. Shika might just win the competetion since it is technically what I wanted for my birthday present. A cat that would become a life-long partner and wouldn't die every eight years would be nice. And he probably did spend the last two months draining most of his blood to make a kitten this size; that probably uses his blood to live. It's _warms_ and I think it also has a _heart beat_ which I noticed when I picked it up earlier.

My present though is sort of a more personal interest than a present for Shika so I might just lose. I've sort have been working on this for more than just two months having been inspired by a book about ninja twin abilities.

I had prepared something akin to a summoning circle on the medium sized scroll I had filled with my chakra but without the proper_ intent_ that I want for this and now it lays on my kiddy sized desk. I didn't want any chairs in the way of this process. Put the kitten on my bed but it kept trying to follow me, but then Shika got out a bowl and a flask and poured some chakra ink into it and with a flourish put it in front of the kitten. The kitten stared at me as if expecting something and which I dumbly stared at. Until Shika prodded me and handed me the pearing knife that I had also prepared for today. I pricked another finger and let a drop of blood plop into the bowl. The kitten then preceded to silently lap it all up enthusiasticly. When it was finished it promptly fell asleep on my bed.

So back with the program, I thought to myself. I wrote on the note pad the instructions for my project/present/experiment. To use chakra to strengthen his voice. Not his voice box or to amplify his voice but to simply lace his voice with chakra. We hadn't tried this before but he had excellent chakra controll more so than me and I had started practiceing earlier too. I instructed him to follow my actions. That he was going to read the words off the scroll as I wrote them, for the best effect. I instructed him to be clear and concise while reading the words since if he said any of them wrong their might be some sort back lash.

Shika put his questions to paper since we had never done anything before like that.

Why was it so dangerous? What would we be doing?

I told him to stop asking questions and to just trust me. Its to make us stronger than ever the best pair of ninja twins in the world. For my dream (which I had never told him before). He shut up after that, firguretively of course.

I touched my hands down on my end of scroll, as Shika does on the other end. And pour chakra into the scroll with the_ intent_ for the purpose of this seal in mind. And although Shika doesn't know what its supposed to be about he can still contribut his chakra, to be influenced by mine. The chakra mingles with the wandering chakra I had left in the scroll before hand.

With my brush I dipped it into the chakra concentrated ink (no blood) and sarted to write the first character. My hand and Shika's voice didn't stop until I finished the last character and him the last syllable. As every syllable left Shika's mouth, the character would glow, float off the page and dissappear and as he starts the next character, the last would appear in the circle in the middle of the page before dissappearing once again.

From one body came two minds,

Twins. One half of two wholes.

Onto two bodies the burden of a shared mind.

To lighten the load.

For we are as much the same as we are our different.

Sister Light (Hikari).

Protector of Human life/Existence (jinseikatsu).

Of Silence, Of Secrets.

Sister of Exuberance (Kakki).

Brother Shadow (Kage).

User of Ink and Smoke.

Of Self Control (Jiseishin).

Brother of Intellect (Chisei).

Siblings of Blood.

Children of Shadow.

Kage no Hikari (Ray of Shadow).

Hikari no Kage (Shade of the Light).

Rest Peacefully(Bujini yasunde kudasai)

Although light cannot exist without shadow.

(Hikariha kagenashisonzaideki masen)

For Shadow can exist in the absence of light.

(Kageno hikarino fuzai desonzaisuru kotoga deki masu)

For with light, the shadows will be deeper.

(Tame hikarito kagega fukakunari masu)

Shika seems to frown at me in distaste, as if to say _Why does it sound like we just read our euloguy?_

I cut my palm and across the desk Shika did the same. I held out my hand and he took it. I squeezed our hands together and I feel Shika do one in return. Until a drop of our mingled blood spilled onto another summoning style circle in the middle of the lines of text. The summoning circle seems to glow as the seal seems to expand but this time instead of in neat vertical lines, it settles in a circular formation. The first lines of the seal closer to the original circle. It grows tighter and tighter until it seems to go almost taut. A spring on a trap. The text of the seal then quickly uncoils out again, but this time it seems to replicate itself. Where the two copies of text head to different directions. One to mine the other to Shika's. Crawling up our arms and heading somewhere, fast, as if being pulled by some invisible force. As the last of the seal splits and seperates we're blinded by a bright light. So we can't see the where the last of the seal ends up. It seems to have dissappeared. Well, I guess it works the seal isn't supposed to be visible anyway.

We're both pretty dizzy after that ordeal but I somehow manage to stagger to the door and dispell the seal there. As I turn around though I find a very upset Nara looking for answers.

"What was that suppose to be about?" - Shika

"Well...It was supposed to give us magic twin powers..like reading each others minds even while miles apart" -Shikako

"Supposed to?" - Shika said his head suddenly darting foward eyes narrowed.

"I refined the thoughts I had on the subject and cleaned up the edges. Cuz it would be weird if we could read our minds all the time right? Or if I had accidentily melded our brains together or something..."- Ko

"Or something" - Shika mutters.

"So I had to make sure that I kept our minds and body seperate throughout the whole ordeal and after it two. That's why I had to make the seal so long, I had to be ver specific with what I wanted. So specific about our differences that it took so long but at the same kind that made it kind of vague. But I think I know what it can do. I had to keep both our mind and body seperate from each other but still mirroring each other. Calculated for the lag that you would have had to keep up the suprise. Or else it might have had some detrimental after affects..." -Ko

"Such as.." - Shika prompted.

"Link linking pulling in the other into a genjutsu even if we're miles apart. Or a wound also appearing on the others body..In theory this is supposed to allow one of us to grow back a limb if the other doesn't have it the same disability too. Although it can't take the place of medical jutsus so we can't heal each other's injuries. But I'm kind of hesitant to..try" - Ko.

We're silent for a while. Thinking about the extra risks that this could have brought as our jobs as ninja. The complications of being dragged somewhere else mentally. Or recieving wounds on top of already serius wounds. But we could also think about the benefits of being linked together like this: silent conversation/planning, calling for back up, quick information during spying/interfuge missions.

_The rule I put in place to keep our minds apart is that one of us has to inialize the the thought and purposely send it to the other person. I think we can test to see if our bodies recieve the same damage now._ \- I broadcasted to his mind.

I gave myself a small cut on the back of my hand and looked at both of Shika's hands just to make sure its not mirrored or anything. So I bandaged up each our hands, my small cut doesn't heal so my theory about not being able to heal each other. I don't want to test out amputating my arm though.

Shika breaks the silence with the words, Why does it feel like

"I didn't do this just for the convience of twin telepathy though since we aren't going to be on the same team anyway. I left both our minds open to each other so that our minds can always brush against each other. Its so that we can always tell whether or not the other one is in danger and where the other one is direction to the one searching. Its the best thing I can do for my dream, my words tumbling out my mouth. "Because when you become the Hokage, that's the best ability I could think of that could help me in guarding you! Suprise! My dream is to help you to become Hokage one day! Make sure you get off your lazy butt. Make you use that big brain of yours to help direct Konoha down its path of a bright future." - Ko

Oh the look on Shika's face. Like he wants to say, _Oh Hell No!_

So I confide in Shika about my dream to make him be recognized by the village as what he is. (The great intellect that would make the right descsions during his reign. Someone who loves the village. I don't tell Shika this though because of how unmotivated he is he might just run away from the pressure if I lay it on too thick) I kept the convincing simple. A childish dream of mine. And I knew it, I persuaded Shika to keep my dream in the immediate family. To keep the Twin telepathy as I had christined it a secret. That we would need something in our arsenal that no one knew about if anyone ever decided to assasinate Shika when he was Hokage.

And at the breakfast table the next morning I proclaimed my dream of helping Shika become Hokage. Of being recognized by the clan as the next clan heir, since Shika didn't need to have both responsibilities on his plate. Shika then accused me that was the reason I want him to be Hokage. So that he was out of the way and that I could be clan heir. To which I had replied that if Shika didn't become Hokage than he could be the next clan heir. Because I just wanted to be recognized by the clan.

This is what I realized when I had reincarnated here. Shika with his intellect could have changed the world, Shika in canon could have become Hokage if he had the motivation. In my past life I had always wondered why Shika had the motivation to be the second hand to Naruto but never had the ambition for himself. He even had the qualities that made a good Hokage; he might not have been motivated for himself. He might have just wantd to have an ordinary life as an ordinary ninja. But for the sake of other people he could be motivated. If it was to protect Konoha, he could be more than exceptional. It was just that he let himself be overshadowed. Shika didn't want to be Hokage but so did Kakashi and looked where that got him. So what would happen if Shika had a little sister that was motivated enough for the both of them?

The dreams of the main character coming true seemed so cliche. Why did Naruto become Hokage? It was because he was recognised by the village, as someone who cared for them. Because Naruto voiced his opinions about becoming Hokage and protecting everyone. Naruto was just so bright that he had motivated Shika into helping him without even trying. So I would become the light to Shika's shadow, make him stronger than ever and help him realize his full potential. I hope that Shika would look at me and see someone he apporved of and got over his lack of motivation so that he could help me make my dream come true. My dream of helping Shika become Hokage.

Author's note: I kind of took the liberty to change Shikako's appearance so that it differed from the fan art. I don't think Silver Queen ever explicitly said what she looked like anyway. Shikako looks pretty much like Shika but more andro.

P.S the Nekokabuki is not like a curse seal in that it does not convert spiritual energy and only unlocks the body's potential. Plus there's not brain washing chakra in it.

This chapter came out a little longer than I expected. :p

I definetely do not know japanese but I'm trying to make it work. Any japanese speakers have any suggestions for me? Any analogies or something about shadow and light?

comment please or review? I'm still a little confused about that..

I'm not sure how I'm going to make Shika Hokage though, but I just want to see the face on Naruto when I join his team and tell them I want to make Shika Hokage.


	6. Chapter 6 - 5

I know that my explanation for the end of last chapter was kind of sketchy and I'm sorry. I'll try to be more descriptive from now on. Still not crazy, yet.

Chapter 5

A week or two after our birthday, me and Shika are playing in the forest behind our house. You know the one that's a reserver for the deer our family takes care of. Luckily we don't have to take care of them yet although sometimes we go back there to see the baby deer.

"Hey Shika did ya know I named the little kitten Yamiya." - Ko

"You named it something? I thought you forgot to. But -ya? Ya know its a girl." - Shika

"Uh huh! There are some girls names that end in -ya. Anyway! Even though her full name is going to be Nara Yamiya, I'm going to call her Yayan." - Ko

"Ya like that name don't'cha Yaya?" - Ko

I pick up the little kitten and twirl her above my head. It gives a weak meow, and it struggles out of my hands and plops right onto my head. Its little claws swiping at my fingers and trying to claw my eyes out.

"I think you mean the ending -yo used for girls. They don't sound all that alike" - Shika

"Hmm, Yamiyo? Yayo? Yoyo, how do you like that one, kitten?" - Ko

"Yoyo...why does it sound so much more pittiful now?" - Shika

I start to sing yoyo, yoyo, yoyo, YOYO. Yoyo. Yo~yo. Yo-yo-yo-yan. All the while dancing in a circle and trying to pull the cat off my head. It seems to have gotten stuck.

"Ugh, I regret giving you that already." - Shika seems to sigh as he flops onto his back.

As I coax Yoyo to lap up some orange collored chakra ink, trying to see if I can turn her into a tabby cat.

"Hey, did you officially name her yet?" Shika say as he turns his head to look over at where I am. "Hey your not supposed to feed her that!"

As I try to explain that I'm trying to see if Yoyo could change colors.

"She's not supposed to turn colors," Shika says as he takes out a flask of black chakra ink and gives it to Yoyo. As the kitten finishes up the ink Shika says to me, "As I explained when I gave her to you that you have to teach her commands to learn but there is one thing I programmed to have sort of like an instinct. Override command: Code Shi-Green-01. Name: Collar."

In a puff of chakra, a tiny collar appears on Yoyo's neck, and Shika takes out a brush and applies the name 'Yamiyo (Yoyo)' onto the collar. In another puff of smoke it dissappears.

"See, now she'll respond to her name. And it'll make it easier to teach her new commands." - Shika

"Why couldn't she just learn her name the normal way?" - Ko

"Because this way is faster." - Shika

"Ah, I see." - Ko

"What do you see? I made it easier so that even someone with a small brain like yours can do it." - Shika

_Hey!_ I yell before we start tumbling in the grass, tiny fists flying. Landing some very ineffective little kid blows on each other.

Five minututes later we got bored and rolled away from each other and started to cloud watch a little. Its a little heard to see through the treetops in the forest but we're still close to the house and there's this little clearing that we play with. Our little enclove, a secret, a world seperate from our house.

"Come on I'm bored! Lets go find some people to play ninja with." - Ko

"Hah~ OK, Ok. I'm coming. Stop pulling on me." - Shika

We go into town looking for the group of kids we usually play with. I had noticed that we had gravitated to the group where Choji and that bossy boy were in. I guess fate had something to with it because I didn't even realize that it was Choji until someone had said his name in passing. I know I'm a horrible person not even remembering the names of the kids I played with. But I was never good at remembering names even as an adult anyway and even in this life I didn't really call anyone without some sort of nick name.

I wasn't partarcularly nice to Choji, or at least more so than I was to the other kids. So I didn't feel like I was familiar with him to given him one. I knew that a certain event had to take place to cement the life-long friendship that would happen between Shika and Choji, so I didn't want change the dynamics of the group. That needed to happen. Afraid that I would change their fates or worse that somehow twist Shika or Choji's personality.

Right at the start of another game of ninja, I heard the line that opened the event I was just thinking about.

"You can't play ninja with us anymore!" Youbirin Suzu stated, when Choji asked if he could play too. I cringed inwardly at the kid's blunt statement. I knew that this was supposed to happen. I knew that this would be a gateway to a life long friendship for Choji and Shika but.

I already knew that kids can be innocently cruel. There were only about a dozen of us, but he had established himself as the 'leader' of the game. The blocky purple tattoos on his cheeks identified him as from the... something clan. Oh yeah the kids name was You-something Suzu. The Suzu clan... was known for medical jutsus and bowls?

The only reason I even remembered that was because of Rin. When I was alive, I had an interest in Kakashi. A childish crush sort of, I was kind of thick-headed I didn't even know waht his books were about until I looked it up online years later. I might have to play a joke on him about that when I meet him. Which also lead me to search about his team mates and the reason he had the sharingan. I was pulled back from my reminisce by the next line.

"But why can't I?" - Choij said wondering why they were being so particularly mean today.

"Because whenever you play with us, we lose!" - You- retorted.

"Yeah, you're way too slow," - Jiro Watanabe.

Choji looked heartbreakingly sad.

"You know guys," Shikamaru said. "Without him, the teams aren't going to be even. It'd be lame, like if you played a game of shogi with one piece missing." This was why my dream became what it was, even as a little kid Shika stood up for people.

"But if you have one piece that's totally useless, it's the same thing." - You-something

"Yeah, what he said," - Jiro

"It's our team, and we don't mind having one less person." - You-big-head

"You're just being difficult Youta! We could switch places."

Youbirin scoffed. "Hey! That's not my name. It's You-bi-rin. You always forget my name, and anyway why would I want you on my team? You're a girl. We don't want a girl on our team. So lets just play!"

I glared at him.

"Well, if its okay with you, then I guess its fine," one of the others muttered, looking like they had just eaten their daily fix of sugar. They didn't care _who_ played, as long as we did and soon. The kiddy mob was getting restless.

But I was getting agitated, in my past life, as a kid I got really peaved about the differences between boys and girls, being pointed out. Especially when I couldn't keep up with the boys anymore and then they didn't want me playing anymore. It wasn't exactly the same but I had empathy for Choji.

And like how I treated that insecurity in the past, I do now by beating up boys. Except now they weren't just random, bitter encounters. Simeone just had to call being a girl a dissadvantage. I was sorely tempted to use chakra to bash in his nose.

"Okay, then its settled!" Youbirin beamed, looking so annoyingly smug. "We're so going to win- " I interupted him with a fist to his mouth. Oh well this will just have to do.

Choji had already lowered his head and walked away at this point, dragging his feet. Out of the corner of my eye I saw him stop to free a butterfly from a spider's web.

"Why don't you keep playing," Shika said unfazed, watching the path of the butterfly as it fluttered away. "I'll be right back."

_And don't get too carried away again_, Shika thought to me. _I know,_ I thought back, _I wont_. I really wanted to be playing dirty though. After the first punch to his mouth though, which didn't really do anything anyway. I had started to give him sharp jabs to his stomach. Not hard enough to hurt but just enough that I annoyed him as I dodged all his swips to get back at me. This made me sort of nostalgic, I used to play jab and evade with my cousins in my past life.

After I had asserted my dominance, showing that girls _could_ be as fast as boys; everyone else had started up a short game of ninja.

After the game ended I went to look for Shika, and even without the use of my twin radar I could easily found him. He was at his favorite cloud watching spot.

I climbed up the stairs just as Shika started to say, "This is the best, watching clouds and eating chips."

"Nuh uh! - I exclaimed as I bounded over to where they laying on the bench. "Stargazing is the best!"

Choji seemed to start at the intrusion. And started to draw back a little shy at the loud girl who had just killed the moment.

"Choji, this is my sister, she's troublesome and a weirdo but she'll grow on ya." - Shika

"You can call me Ko-Kun" - Ko

"-Kun?" - Choji ased.

"Because this Shika-Chan," I pointed to Shika, "And I'm Ko-Kun," I said with my hand on my chest. "And this is Yoyo-ya," I added, picking her up off the ground. The kitten skirmed in my hands seeming to perfer just following quietly behind me.

I took a band from my pocket and then promptly tied it in the customary Nara men hairstyle. "Hmm," I thought out loud, "Cho-Chan doesn't sound very cute."

Choji and Shika shared a look, as if Shika meant to say _see, weird_?

"Ooh, I know. Your last name is Akimichi right? Then you can be Aki-Cho, our last and fourth member." - I said making it up as we go along.

"Member of what?" Choji asked.

"Of a genin team! Of course," I smiled smugly as I thought it up on the fly. "Yoyo-ya can be our jonin-sensei because she's really good at being sneaky, and this will be our first mission."

I whispered in Aki-Cho's ear, "That's your dad over there right?"

Aki-Cho nodded.

"Good," I said, "Then we can sneak up on him. He's the bad guy."

Aki-Cho seemed to almost want to protest for a moment until he saw the conspirational gleam in my eye.

I whispered in Yoya's ear, "Stealth: Attack Sequence: Gum in Hair."

She seemed to almost nod before suddenly melting into a puddle of ink. Aki-Cho had a look of suprise on his face but he got over it as he watched the shadowy puddle eat up ground until it was behind his dad. Where Yoyo-ya re-materialized into a kitten and started to paw at the back of his pants. Cho-senior than turned around to see what the cute kitty cat wanted with him. As he bent down though, Yoya hissed, puffed up her fur and jumped on his head. And melted again. He was so suprised that it left us an opening to charge at him, our cardboard kunai and shuriken raised. We jumped at him and hung from his arms as he very much played the role of the bad guy.

The sun was setting and Aki-Cho had to go home. Where I then shamelessly asked Cho-senior to let Aki-Cho to come play at our house tonight and sleep over.

"And Aki-Cho can sleep in Shika's room!" I exclaimed brillantly, like this was the greatest plan in the world.

In the end, Cho-senior couldn't resist my childish charm and let Aki-Cho sleep over. So Cho-senior walked us home. Although he stayed long enough to greet our parents he had to go tell Aki-Cho's mom where he's gonna spend the night. After dinner we played in my room, and I showed Aki-Cho my collection of ink/chakra ink, showed him some seal proto-types and then I gave him my favorite book of Bijuu myths. We even went up a tree and climbed onto the roof. And watched the stars before we went to bed. And we became the best of friends and would forever more go over to each other's house and eat dinner and sometimes played genin team together.

Author's note: yes, I sort of took some of the dialogue from DOSun since this is a fanfiction of that.

Comment please, do you guys like it?


	7. Chapter 7 - 6

Chapter 6

So a few months flew by just like that. Caring for Yoyo-ya, playing ninja, and being on Team Yoyoya(lol) were not the only thing I did though. I also researched and thought, drew up even more proto-types and ideas on seals. Ink is really messy, when it spills you get it everywhere. On the floor oon the walls and it splatters and splashes. The ink disasters have only increased since I've recieved Yoya and don't get me started on ink stains in clothes. Yoshino even nagged me into learning how to wash some of the particularly difficult ink stains out.

So...one day I even created a seal for the sole process of getting ink stains out of clothes, household surfaces, skin and hair. I know that you could just reinforce some objects to hold chakra so as to prevent staining but well it has to land somewhere and you can't do that process for_ everything_. There's also the fact that if you don't chakra protect it before hand the ink would still take. So there's that.

A year rolled around and its right before the Academy starts, and there isn't any doubt that I'm not going to join Shika at the Academy. Since this time around our parents probably know that I can use Chakra even if I _was diagonosed_ as chakra hypersensitive. I guess you could call me a miracle child. But before we did though we had to go to the hospital to be vacinated. I've noticed that this world is heavily influenced by medical ninjutsu.

There are needles and I.V.s but there aren't any microscopes. So how does Konoha have vacines and not know specificly about the microsophic bads that go with it? So how exactly do they keep plagues from happening before they happen? It's not like medic-nins can heal each and every individual, especially if a war breaks out. It seems that medical ninjutsu helps points the this world's medicine in the right direction without telling doctors exactly why it is so. Being here has only enhanced the backwardness of the Naruto-Verse that there can be computers for medical use but not _telephones_. How did this world even get so jumbled up? Shouldn't it go step one, step two. I'm suprised ninjas didn't just make an atomic bomb and blow themselves _before_ they even gathered in villages.

So I was the one to get a vacination first and got out of the doctor's room before Shika. Out in the hall, I recognize (from all that chakra (people) watching I did as a bored baby) a lot of the chakras signatures to be from the Nara Clan. You see the village's hospital has different factions in it. Every clan that ususally go into the medical field like the Suzus and Naras etc., each have tehir own area. And each gave the people of their own clan's special privellages. The other people, the civillians and ninjas of other clans are really more of a free for all. If you needed to be healed for this or that; you go to this or that clans specialization. So of course me and Shika were in the Nara section its just that what I heard in the halls that got me all riled up.

They were talking about the Nara Clan Head's twins, about how they were both really smart, characteristic of a Nara but that they were eery as hell. Never mind that they were just talking about us, but they were also talking about Yoshino's children. Yoshino that's probably going to turn a corner and hear them. The little gossips, the Clan Head's Heirs were here with the Head's wife. What were they doing gossiping about us where we could here them. Was it on purpose? What really got me really mad was what they said next: That they're worried about the succesion of the heirs but it wasn't just that. I've heard some Naras talking about that in passing because of our weird birth order and validity. It was the fact that they started to diss Shika, saying that he wasn't just the characteristic _lazy_ of a Nara but that he was down right apathetic. Sure there's parts of Shika's outlook on the world that leaves much to be desired. And I guess now that I look back on it people who didn't know Shika personally would see him a little differently.

But how could they label a five year old child that. It wasn't that he didn't care about them, about Konoha. I know in canon one of the things that Shika said was that "he wasn't lazy but that he just didn't care". But it's not like Shika doesn't care about _anything_; he just doesn't care for troublesome things that comes after. Label my older/little brother that he just doesn't care for their best interest. Maybe that's why Shika never became Hokage in Canon, people probably still had that misconception about him. Even when he did a lot in their name, it was always somehow outshined by Naruto's actions. By Naruto's passion and outlook on life.

I was already planning on what I was going to say (since public speaking was not my greatest trait), and tell them off. When I heard one of them mention that there was always me to fall back. That I seemed very easy to manipulate. But then the third one said that I was too volatile to be clan head and there was also the fact that I was a _girl_.

At that point I just snapped. Maybe it was because I was in a part of the hospital that was apart, away from preying eyes. That I just jumped right around the corner to prove that I could do _anything _I could also make a great Head of the clan, (lol) my earleir plan forgotten. And being a girl didn't have anything to do with it. I'll show them, I thought. As I brought out a small scroll, and ink that was laced with my and Shika's blood. I improvised, remembering Yin-Yang and nature sealing styles. I had this inkling for a while that nature sealing had to do with DNA. And Yin and Yang had a lot of possibilities. It had both connotations about the mind and body yes, but also about gender.

I quickly drew something like an octagon, with the character for yin at the north and yang at the south. There was the character for earth(representing the body) at the NE direction with the character for malleable/merge in its exact opposite. In the NW direction there was the character for heaven amd at its polar end the character for whole/seperate. On the W and E side I had the charcter for Yang on the E side since I was switching the yin/yang direction of my body. In the middle had a circle that again looked like a summoning circle.

I saved that for later though as I draw the same exact thing on the back except the yin-yang directions are both swaped and the character for earth has the character for base/example on its opposite end. For the front summoning circle I bit my thumb until it bled onto it and for the back I took out a vile Shika's pure blood out of my Organized Pocket Dimmension (OPD for short) and dropped a few onto that summoning circle. Recently I've been practicing the speed of sealing so that it could be practical in the middle of battle so during all this, the doctors probably couldn't read all of it in the time it took for me to make and activate my seal/summoning hybrid with some of _intent_ filled chakra. My body is engulfed in a puff of smoke, and I was about to pull down my pants to show them how exactly awesome I am. Shika tackles me from behind, even without our minds 'brushing' he could probably still predict all the carzy things I'll do.

I yell at him, "Hey I was just about to show them how -" And Shika interrupts me, "You were about to flash them, one of which is a _woman_." That totally threw me off and calmed me down. Hey that guy from earlier was talking about girls like that in front of a female colleague? Such an ass. I shook my head to clear my thoughts as Shika gives me his hand to help me up. We brush each other off from our short skirmish. And well, I put on a really big, shit-eating grin, and ask, "Hey do I look any different?"

To which Shika promtly replied with a lazy: "Nope." "Oh," I exhale faintly dissappointed. That means it worked though, I wasn't supposed to look all that facially different. I had used Shika's blood, his "body," as a base to make mine male. Technically it was supposed to make copies of our own bodies, sending them to somewhere else, glomp them together. Switch our genders, where Shika's clone would then dissapear as if a storing seal was broken and mine would dispell bringing with it the changes back to my body. But I guess you could also say that parts of our _genes_ were _selected_ and moved around. At least that's my theory about the parts about nature sealing that I had quickly drawn on there while giving the seal _intent_-filled chakra.

Of course after that accident I had to explain, my new seal though. We had to go to a private Nara doctor though, one for head family bussiness. At first that they didn't believe that at first. But when I had undressed, they then thought that maybe Shika and I had beend crossdressing and impersonating each other. We were a very close pair of twins that knew each other very well. The thing was that when Shika undressed to and showed them that we weren't lieing about the seal, and Yoshino was sure that she hadn't raised twin _boys_ without her knowing. They planned to keep my affinity with seals and this incident all very hush hush, only spoken behind Nara walls.

After we went home, had dinner and Yoshino filled in Shikaku in on todays events. Shikaku took me aside and gave me a very awkward talk. I got the gist of what he was trying to say, and I had to very carefully explain to him that no I don't want to be a boy. They had thought that I wanted to be transgender. Shika had laughed at me about this incident for months afterwards, that I was about to flash random strangers with my boy parts. I stewed on that and kept silent, I didn't have anything to say on that.

Author's note: My sealing has its many of its properties lie in the seals words/characters but also in the chakra that I send with intent, with a directive with what exactly I want in mind. That's how I can make really simple seals out of just prose/sentences.

No this is not a gender bender although she can and will be changing it at will. Shikako will be straight, as in she's a girl looking at boys straight.


	8. Chapter 8 - 7

Chapter 7

Oh yeah, I had forgot to mention this earlier but before the Gender bender incident had taken place Shikaku had started to teach the two of us the Clan Technique: Shadow Possesion. Being the way the two us were, we had quickly mastered it with the chakra control we had. Hell we could already both tree and water walk by this time, we just didn't flaunt the fact. Since I knew there was the ever recruiting and even more secretive than ANBU, ROOT, in the the village, and Shika didn't have the motivation or the want to be noticed and possibly given more responsibility.

So school at the Academy started, I wore my hair up in the Nara men style and down; I wore pants, dresses, pants under dresses alternating but who knows what was underneath? I had further coded and improved my genderswaping seal, although technically and in theory I could also change my age and looks to whoever's blood I was using so there's that. I could now use it anytime I wanted, it was voiced automated, and the voice being in my head I could change between forms pretty easily, and sometimes even subconsciously.

So a week passed and the Kunoichi club started, and I met Ino and Sakura pretty much the same way that it did in the orginal DOSun, except I was even more painfully shy. But eventually after hanging quietly around them, I got up my courage and tomboyishly introduced myself as Ko-Kun. And quickly gave the two of them the nicknames: Saku-Chan and Ino-Ya. They were both exactly as I thought they would be. Saku was even more shy and soft spoken then I thought. Inoya was as confident like I remembered. The two of them were smart in their own ways, Saku was book-smart and Inoya was more street-smart. We quickly became the kind of friends I craved the kind that could last a life time if given the chance to grow. I even learned to draw, full body ones and not just floating manga heads. Which I had sucked at in my past life even though I liked it (once again a half-ass).

The hardest thing wasn't Kunoichi classes like I had expected. It was seeing Sasuke and Naruto for the first time. Sasuke was like I had seen in flashback episodes, so gentle and sweet. Naruto, who, had on such a downtrodden expression. A child already with a heavy burden, even if he didn't know it at the time.

Naive and clean of the influences that the world had to offer until it was suddenly shoved into his face. How many more years until this innocent and soft-spoken side of him was was corrupted. Sasuke was someone who didn't believe the world could be so dirty, he reminded me of my own naivety. Sasuke as a child had loved his brother, his family, his clan. Looking up to them. To his brother who seemingly betrayed him. To his father who didn't look at him until Itachi had become distasteful. To a recognition that only came after the downfall of his whole clan. Where the villagers, the civillians praised him as a genius since no one else was left to be compared to...

Naruto who never knew a love of a family, and instead became the class clown. The town jokester, that everyone in the town at least acknowledged his annoying presence. He later on went to paint the faces of the Hokage Monument to get the attention of the whole town and eventually became close to the one who scolded him. The Third and Iruka were there for Naruto, but who was there for Sasuke? Lonely nights? Nightmares? Praises that you knew that you didn't deserve. It twisted him, pushing away the shame he felt at being praised for no reason. Accepting that maybe there was a reason why everyone kept on praising him.

It was no wonder Sasuke joined the darkside, at least it had more cookies (benefits). But how close it could have been for the exact opposite? If Sasuke didn't associate reviving his clan's honor with revenge than maybe. Or maybe if he had met and became friends with Naruto sooner. If Naruto never had taken up the class clown persona until it had became _real_. Until it had bore fruit. It could have been oh so differnt, and it suddenly hit me. That I was in the Naruto-verse yes but it was differnt. It was became morereal. Sure my own little world had felt real to me, I had grown attached to my new family and friends. But it was more real in that the veil between good and evil. Between this thought and that decision was so thin. That the fate of these two young children didn't hang in the balance, of color schemes and character design.

Upon seeing them, I had to grit my teeth so that no one saw how seeing the two of them had effected me so strongly. I made a decision that day, to befriend the two of them. To bring them together and be the mediator between the two of them. So that years later, after the Uchiha downfall, Sasuke would have someone to lean on. The same kind of sunshine that had caused Sasuke to call Naruto his friend in the first place. To kill the only bit of sunshine in his life, to become stronger. More callous.

At first I had approached the two of them seperately, the two of them were both so easy to befirend. Naruto was so eager for human connection. Sasuke was hesitant but sweet you could tell immediately that he was a very sheltered boy (like me). Slowly, oh so slowly as I had inserted myself brusquely in their lives. As I was probably their first friend, and a very tomboyish one at that. I introduced them slowly into our group. For some reason it was easier to be friends with Saku and Inoya, in the way that girls can just click (if you didn't spew random stuff at them and had stuff in common to talk to them about, this time around I could talk about flowers and drawing and hobbies).

I brought them all together. At first it was just Shika and me, Aki-Cho, Saku, and Inoya. But then I invited Naruto and Sasuke into the group and even gave them their own nicknames, Uma-Kun and Ue-Suke. I even teased Sasuke that I had called him that because I could tell that he came from a sheltered household. And that I bet that he called his mom and dad chichi-ue and haha-ue. Uma-Kun and Ue-Suke became fast friends even teasing each other Horse and Deputy before the year even ended (At least they didn't call each other loser and shitty like in canon). By this time we had even invited Hinata, Shino and Kiba to play sometimes too. I even looked for Team Guy but it seemed that they had different recess periods.

We would play an extended version of genin team where I thought the idea to even have a hokage defending the village (tree) and there would be groups to both attack and defend it with the "Hokage." You can easily think who wanted to be (Naruto) Hokage the most, although during this part of the timeline did not yet state loudly that he wanted to be Hokage, but I think it was during this time that he had cemented his resolve.

And just like in Canon and DOSun-verse there was tension with Ami.

I'll just keep it short, Ami had once again taunted Saku-chan concerning her forehead, and I can't stop laughing about this but she called me a boy in drag. Inoya stuck up for us in this universe too with her stinging quips.

"You used to be so cool Ino, but then you started to hang out with the weirdos. Are the Widehead-girl and the girly-boy the only ones you can find to hang around you?

And Inoya retorted with a flair, "Aren't you tired of always saying the same thing, Ami? Always bullying people about their appearances, maybe you're just feeling insecure about your own looks?" Inoya squinted as if it was a revelation she_ just_ had.

Ami had turned away with a hmmp! and promptly ran away; snickers following her.

And just like that Inoya, Saku-chan and I became unseperable or at least for Kunoichi classes.

Author's note: So yea I decided to not have Yota yet.. he could come in falshbacks 500 chapters from now. LOL

I nickname Sakura, Saku, foreshowing anyone? Comment if you want pairings. Come on they're totally going to be differnt from canon. Well except for Naruxhinata and Shixtem cause I really liked those

I'm might keep it to DOSun though in the fact that Karin dies, man though I really like her red/red combo in the genetics department. Maybe Gaa/Kari then but how will I make them meet? the chunin exams?


	9. Chapter 9 - Really Awesome chapter 8

Chapter 8

A year later, when Ue-Suke was six I saw Itachi in real life for the first time. He looked so much more younger, without the worry lines that I remembered. He looked like... well, he was only _12_. But next year though was the year that he's going to massacre the whole Uchiha compound. He was going to kill his parents just so he could save his little brother. My thoughts were on this as I was on my way home with Shika and Aki-Cho, but then I was shaken out of my own melancholey when I heard what then piqued my interest. Ue-Suke's high-pitched voice rang out, "- Neko-baa's place?"

My ears perked up and I practically dragged Shika and Aki-Cho right along behind me. "U~e-Suke," I yelled, getting the brothers attention. "Did I hear you guys say neko? I want to come too!" And I really _did_ want to come. A bunch of cats all in one place too. Hehe.

"Ue-Suke?" Itachi echoed, his eyebrow raised at his little brother. Who which then shrugged his shoulders like it was an everyday occurrence, and answered with an, "She's an annoying girl in my class." To which Itachi inquired if I really was that annoying. Ue-Suke then answered his brother with a, "OK she's not as annoying that really loud horse-faced kid," trying to keep his face straight, but he couldn't keep out the fond note in his voice. "And who is this 'horse' kid your talking about? You shouldn't be talking bad about your friends, you know. Especially the one in front of you. Now apologize to the girl you just called 'annoying,'" Itachi reprimanded his little brother before flicking his forehead.

Ue-Suke pout-scowled at me before reluctantly saying, "I'm sorry for calling you annoying, Ko-Kun."

"So," I intoned. "Can I go with you guys or not? I wanna see some cats."

Ue-Suke seemed to narrowed his eyes at me, sizing me up as if trying to see if I wanted to spend time with his big brother too.

Itachi then politely declined my proposition, probably this is the only time he can spend with his little brother. Too bad I wanted to chase some cats. Then I had a bright idea. I lifted Yoya off the ground and promptly shoved into Itachi's face. "But I wanna show Yoya other cats. You see he was abandoned.." I fibbed. "So he doesn't know any other cats." The two behind me eyeing me like I was insane, as they knew I was allergic to _real_ cats. Shika sighed, "Troublesome," he said before kicking the dust and turning around. Shika indicated AKi-Cho to follow him over his shoulder, "Come on, Cho let's go home first."

"You should follow their example, Ko-Kun, and follow your brother home," Itachi said as he flicked my head gently. Dissappointed, I turned around, dragging my feet. Halfway home, I remembered that I hadn't told Itachi that Shika was my brother. I shivered briefly for a second. Maybe he just checks up all of Ue-Suke's friends. I'm sure he has information on Saku, Shino, Kiba and Uma to if I was to go by the names of the kids that plays/annoys with Ue-Suke. Everything is okay, I'm just over reacting.

For a month afterwards, I tried trailing the two of them. Although, I know that I shouldn't stop the Uchiha massacre. Not only would it mean that Kakashi stays in ANBU but it also means that Madara would still be wandering the village looking for ways to exploit or destroy it.

After school, I had stopped Ue-Suke from going home with a, "Hey! Ue-Suke, the next time you and your brother go and train can I tag along?" Ue-Suke had replied with a, "Why?" reluctant to share his brother with anyone.

Uhhh. An excuse. I need and excuse, went my internal dialogue. Excuse, excuse, excuse...Uh. I then blurted out, "I want to get better at target practice," which I did, "but also.. your brother's kind of cute," which he was. I started remembering an older Itachi, that slim body type.

"Sure, why not. A little competition never hurts, Sasuke," a playful voice behind me said, which sent shivers down my spine. Cough, cough my internal dialogue practically choked on itself. I turned around and there was Itachi looking fine even when he was 12, too bad his face wasn't all that cute. I kind of froze, I haven't checked out anyone in years ever since I had reincarnated really. I haven't even seen Kakashi yet hmm...

Then out of nowhere a very familiar and loud voice shouted out, "Hey! Baka-ue, are you trying to get ahead of me? I want to come train too." Uma-kun said with a pout.

"Haha," Itachi laughed as his brother and Uma started fighting before him.

"Ne, ne," I started. "What's your name, Ue-Suke's, big brother?" "Mmn, it's Itachi, Ko-Kun," Itachi answered in a gentle voice. I smiled at the fact that he remembered my name. Now I wasn't a fan girl in my past life but here and now, even the littlest of praises from this slightly older boy colored my cheeks red. Holy Shit! Am I going through puberty again?! I'm, only six! Damn it...

I blushed and looked down but not before I blurted out, "Then I'll call you Ita-nii!"

So the three of us went down to one of the training grounds, and practiced our target throwing. Ita-nii didn't exactly teach us anything though. It was more like Ita-nii practiced _along side_ us, without criticism. Ue-Suke seemed to treat it like it was a normal occurrence and not caused by the two extras, so I thought that must be it. It wasn't a totally wasted day though, since I gave Uma-Kun some pointer on using Kunai and even Taijutsu, courtesy of growing up in a Clan. I wasn't the best in Taijutsu but I taught him how to use the environment around him in a fight. I had very good hand-eye coordination in this life. Haa. I remember missing soccer balls that were static right in front of me when I used to try.

I never achieved what I came there to do, their target practices together were usually only between the two brothers. But later on I learned that Uma-Kun and Ue-Suke would practice together after school when Ita-nii was ever too busy. I guess the competition between the two was what caused their friendship to bloom in canon too. It makes me kind of depressed...

Ue-Suke wasn't the only one I tried to get closer to. Uma-Kun's birthday was always three weeks after ours and it wasn't hard to spend time with him. I usually treated Uma to a few bowls of Ichiraku's ramen around this time. I even gave him a hair cut that one time as a present, he looked so much cuter with short hair as a kid then he did as an adult. Although he never did allow me to get close to his hair ever again after that.

I wasn't Uma's only friend though, it seemed that introducing him to other kids at a young age had opened a flood gate. Naruto only needed to smile brightly and I let nature run its course. Other than Ue-Suke, who had become the best of friends (the kind that good naturedly bickered constantly), Uma also became fast friends with Hinata, Kiba and Shino. Naruto wasn't suddenly smarter or less obnoxious but I guess having friends helped his social skills. At first the actions that caused him to become closer to these three weren't on purpose, but eventually he grew into being more.. socially inclined and aware.

Strangely enough the first one he had befriended the first was Shino, the quiet and serious bug lover. Eventually though the Uma had started to grow on the kid. Although Shino was still very soft-spoken and only talked with the barest amount to people outside of his clan but eventually you would see the two whispering to one another. Usually about the local wildlife (bugs) around the Academy and Konoha. Imagine boyish interest in wild, regular beetles and other assorted bug catching activities. Even when Uma got over the bug phase of his life he still had a friendship with Shino. Kiba was second, of course, the two had sparked a friendship out of necessity, when everyone else was tired after playing a game or two. The two of them could still go on. Eventually the two of them started to hang out outside of the school, and Uma could even be found at the Inuzuka compound once in awhile. Ue-Suke seemed to sense that Uma wouldn't be welcomed at his home though, so he never did invite Uma home. But the two would sometimes go for ramen on the weekends and go over to Uma's apartment to play. I guess it was humbling for Ue-Suke, the first time Ue-Suke had went to his apartment (since I tagged along), well, I guess it became more personal. That someone he knew, one of his friends, was an orphan and was living by himself. Hinata was... more difficult to say in the least but eventually with his newly acquired social skills, Uma had started to encourage Hinata to talk more and eventually with the patience he learned from hanging around Shino he had coaxed Hinata out of her shell at an early age. Don't get me wrong though, Hinata was still insecure in regards to her family and still had some low self-esteem. Its not like Uma was magic. But now she would sometimes make Uma breakfast and would actually _share/give_ it to him now and could even interact with Uma fairly normally and _without_ fainting.

I'm not sure if Rookie 9 would have been close friends this fast and this early if it wasn't for Uma. Sure I was the one to collect them all and gather them together but Uma was the glue. The one common point that we had all shared. The bright and slightly obnoxious sun that would all shine on us. Uma-Kun was Uma-Kun who could all make us smile at a moments notice. Uma never did have that depressing look on anymore, the one that I had seen the first day of school.

These thoughts are making me remember the first time I had met Kiba, Shino and Hinata.

The first day of school, Kiba had just gone up to me, took a big whiff, and then promptly told me that my cat smelled funny. And complained that it wasn't fair that I had a pet already and he didn't even have his first puppy yet. Great impulse control that, well look whose talking mine's not the best either. I had then preceded to smack him in the back of the head and said that he his breath smelled like dog-breath. And well we fought like, well, like cats and dogs.

Shino, I had spotted on the second day, watching a line of ants go about their day. I had just squatted there with him, watching the ants. I had then wandered off to find a lady bug and share it with him, my favorite bug. I had a ladybug cupped in my hand, when had I gotten Shino's attention. Still crouched a tiny Shino stared up at me cutely (or at least I think he did under those glasses), I then told him that if I showed him my favorite bug he should show me his. I giggled feeling like a particularly naughty kid who had just suggested to play doctor. His eyebrows twitched at that but he didn't say anything. So I opened my hand but then the ladybug flew away unexpectedly. Shino must have noticed my disappointed face since he jumped up and caught the ladybug right out of the air. Shino must have been very gentle catching it since when he revealed to me, it wasn't an orange smudge and still intact. I was so preoccupied with this feat that I seemingly forgetting about what I had said earlier. Instead I asked him if he had any interesting books about bugs at home for me to borrow. He gave me a brief and surprised expression (very brief since I couldn't actually see his face) for a second. Huh, even as a kid he acted very mysterious(?). I had said:

"Hmm, but you don't have to give me any books about Kikaichu, if you don't want to. Clan secrets and stuff y'know," I said deciding that I didn't want to be so half-assed about my hobbies like my last life. "And I don't want any kiddy books about them either. Ohh, books about ladybugs, butterflies, fireflies and other bugs that you think are cool would be good." So the next day he gave some books about some different bugs, mostly about ladybugs and butterflies but there were also some about preying mantises. There was even a very brief one about Kikaichus although it was practically a fanciful story book. I read all of them even the one about ladybugs and butterflies, wondering if maybe they were any different in this world. Out of the kids that were going to become Team 8, Shino was the one I was closest to strangely enough. He didn't talk much but from time to time he would let me borrow books on bugs. And during Academy practice he was my favorite person to be partnered with for Taijutsu practice, I looked to improve myself. Let's admit it I sucked at Taijutsu. I tired to use my surroundings but that didn't help much in the Academy.

Hinata I didn't really talk to until two months into the Academy, I had invited her to the sleepover that I was hosting at my house with Saku and Inoya. It was very awkward since it looked like she thought I was going to bully her. T^T. Do I look that scary? Maybe she thought I was a boy (I wasn't, at least not then). Her dad's pretty strict though so I think that if I wasn't a fellow clan heir, she probably wouldn't have been allowed to come.

These great times didn't last though. I had lost track of time, everything just seemed so.. idyllic. Like it was summer vacation even though we were going to the Academy. It was great being a kid again. Who didn't want to go back to those times? But this time I had actual friends, we all felt equal to one another. In my past life, I guess I shouldn't have asked people to be my friend. I shouldn't have been so naive and should have let it happen naturally. I didn't even work much on my sealing techniques, I just chilled with my new friends. Friends..

The thing was, when I saw Ue-Suke under that tree after the Uchiha Downfall. Uma-Kun was there too. He looked just as bad as Ue-Suke, its just instead of grieving and brooding like Ue-Suke. Uma-Kun seemed haunted. He was there with Ue-Suke at the Uchiha Downfall.

All of the future Rookie 9 (plus Sakura) were close friends, we knew something was _wrong_ since we spent _every day_ together. There was also the fact that they were Clan Heirs, they heard whispers behind closed doors. They had probably heard the words, Uchiha and Uzumaki, and strained their ears last night like I did. The Clan Heads were probably deeply disturbed, one of the other clans had fallen by one of their own. By someone that wasn't _practically_ a child, but was a _child_. Only a few years older than their own. The Clan Heads _did try_ to be discrete, since the Uchiha Survivor was a classmate of their children. But they didn't tried that hard...they didn't want to be the ones to explain their children's friend's new situation... Everyone but Saku knew or at least had and inkling but that was soon solved by Inoya when Saku started to approach Ue-Suke. So then Saku knew too. We were their friends but we just didn't know what we _needed_ to do.

My eye caught Uma's eye but all he did was smile weakly at me and then went back to looking at his feet. We didn't approach the two but we all agreed to meet at my house tonight to talk about what to do. We didn't expect the two of them to be there, so we didn't tell them about the meeting.

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Third Person POV - Uchiha Compound Last Night -Uchiha Fall

In the Uchiha compound there walked two boys around seven years old, one with the usual Uchiha looks and one that had bright hair, not usually seen in the streets of the Uchiha compound. You could tell that the two were good friends despite the bickering between the two.

Sasuke knew that his parents for some reason didn't approve about Naruto. He wasn't stupid, the whole adult population of the village acted strange in regards to the boy. At first when he had contemplated inviting Naruto over to his house but then thought better of it since he remembered his father talking ill about the boy. But Sasuke had thought nothing more of it than the usual silly Uchiha pride but then. He started to go over to Naruto's apartment to study together, because the blond idiot sorely needed it. But then when went around the village with Naruto on the weekends, going out to eat at that greasy noodle place just because, well, because that was the only place that had people who didn't look at Naruto weirdly. At first he had thought that the villagers were looking at him strangely when the two of them were heading out of the training gounds together. The villagers might have been looking at Sasuke himself and only seeing Itachi, his Nii-san, the prodigy's _normal_ younger brother. But that wasn't quite right, when the two had gone around town together the eyes of the villagers were filled with disdain and disgust. All towards Naruto. All really familiar emotions that he saw in his own father's eyes, semi related to the emotion called disappointment. Sasuke really doubted that Naruto would ever live to see the day when the villagers would look at him with even a glimmer of pride and approval in their eyes like Sasuke's father's did that day a few months ago when he learned how to do the Great Fire Ball Technique.

The two of them had been target practicing at the usual place that Sasuke and Itachi usually went to, but it had gotten late. It seemed sudden but it wasn't surprising since we were holding a competition to see who had approved the most over the year. Naruto had annoyingly pointed out that last year Naruto's own skills were crap and that compared to then he was the one that had improved the most. Sasuke, if he didn't knew any better, that Naruto didn't put much thought in his words and actions that Naruto might have rigged the race up to end up like this. Now it was late and Sasuke was planning to use this as an excuse to let Naruto sleep over, Sasuke secretly didn't want Naruto to go home to that empty apartment. Sasuke had a clan, neighbors who _didn't_ look at him like scum. He had neighbors who asked how his day was. He had a family. Even if his parents weren't the most supportive of parents in the world. But at least he had them. Plus there was Itachi, even if his dad didn't Itachi always made sure to point out Sasuke's strengths. Made sure he knew them, Itachi always cared. Too bad he was always too busy.

Sasuke was planning to logically argue some point about the fact that Naruto's apartment was farther away than the compound from where they were practicing. But then he stopped in the middle of the street. He wasn't going to let his father or whatever politics going on here get in the way of his friendship with Naruto.

It was dark and Sasuke numbly thought that he might have missed the first body they had probably gone across, the two had been arguing about something petty. But he didn't miss the one right in front of him, the one that was sprawled in the middle of the road. Now that he had registered the body, he noticed it was quiet. Too quiet, the Uchiha might have kept to themselves even among themselves but it was too quiet, too early. Sasuke ran his eye around the Uchiha compound and he had cursed himself what he did not notice earlier. There was blood on the street, blood on the walls of the stores and houses, on the front doors of _former homes_.

The two young boys paled in the moonlight. The blond hurled the contents of his stomach right there on the street, next to the corpse. Naruto heaved his stomach, over and over, even after it was empty. The smell of blood was thick in the air, why hadn't he smelled it earlier. Naruto was disgusted with the corpse, he was ashamed that he was disgusted by someone who only alive mere moments before. And he would forever regret that he had disrespected the dead by puking all over their body. A man, a man that he didn't even know the name of..but was most likely the owner of the house he laid in front of. Naruto didn't want to look to hard. At the open front door, at the streaks of blood. At the shadows just inside the house. He didn't want to look to close, but he did. A mop of curly black hair, a bloodied toy. Too much, too...

Naruto dry heaved on the street, he wanted to throw up, to purge himself of what he saw but he didn't want to forget. To forget the face of the man in front of him, to forget the image of the trail of bodies down the street. The scene.. that was devoid of Sasuke. Where was he? Naruto should have known, should have realized that the dark-eyed boy had paled for different reasons. This was where Sasuke lived, the Uchiha _compound_, the trail of bodies most likely lead to... Naruto started running.

Sasuke ran towards his house, numbly recognizing his neighbors as he got closer to home. There was the onee-san that lived... The uncle that worked here.. The obaa-san that lived down the street.. The annoying, bright eyed girl that lived next door, eyes glassy but still breathing. But something deep down told him it was too late, she wasn't _there_. No one was there anymore. Sasuke dreaded sliding open the door, finding what he would find. If only he was at home. If he had been home earlier...would he be dead now? Instead of standing here pondering this.

When the two had split, Sasuke was running as fast as he could to get home, but with every body he came across he had slowed down. Naruto when he had noticed Sasuke's absence, went after him. So the two weren't actually that far aprat. Thinking that if only he had noticed when Sasuke had left, had gone for help while pulling Sasuke behind him. Naruto knew that trails of bodies usually ended in a pile of them...with the murderer on top. Sasuke was running home, yes, but he was running towards a killer who wanted the Uchihas all dead for some reason. Naruto knew he wasn't the brightest cookie in jar but he knew that the Commander head of Konoha's police would definitely not be missed in this massacre. That the killer was most likely still here, possibly waiting for the Head of Police's son to come home. For Sasuke to come home.

As Naruto neared the house he thought he saw Sasuke entered, he saw the body of a little girl in front of the house, directly next door to Sasuke's house. The little girl wasn't a body she was still breathing, but it was so ragged and slow it was as if she wasn't really alive at all. Like it was a trick of the wind. Naruto saw that her eyes were already dead, unseeing. Absently he sat there staring dumbly at the girl as she took her last breath. After a moment, Naruto remembered why he was there. He entered the house.

The first thing Sasuke saw when he entered the room was Itachi. Itachi standing over his parents, at first he had thought that Itachi had come home too late and had found their parents just like him. But the way he was holding himself over them... And then the images started, his own personal hell, brought to life by the brother he loved and trusted. He watched as his mom and dad were killed again and again by his brother's own, already bloodied, hands.

Sasuke seemed to not be able to believe it, to concentrate on the truth in front of him. He didn't seem to be able to listen but it seemed that he had at least absorbed it: Itachi had killed their parents and the whole compound just to test his skills, that he, Sasuke, wasn't even worth killing. That since he had wanted to surpass him anyway, he now has a chance, a chance to cling to life, become strong and come to kill him. Itachi had even said that the next time the two should meet, that they should share the same eyes; the Mangekyo Sharingan eyes, and the only way to achieve that was"

"...to achieve that you must kill the one you are most close to," Itachi intoned. Sasuke numbly thought to himself, _Is that how you got yours big brother, by killing Shisui-nii-san? _

Itachi seemed to stare at something behind Sasuke, and seemed to disappear in thin air. Itachi's next words seemed to be so close as if next to his ear, and they chilled Sasuke to the bone. Itachi spoke most sinister, "Or should I give you something else to hate me about? Make your revenge a little bit sweeter?" Sasuke almost didn't want to turn around but he had to. And there right behind him, just like he had predicted was Naruto with a kunai pressed to his neck, a thin line of red running down his neck. Sasuke had the worse possible outcomes going through his head when Itachi suddenly threw Naruto at him, with the words, "Catch me if you can!" Sasuke shivered, how did he know what Shikako said sometimes when they played games at the Academy?

Naruto went frozen as a kunai was drawn to his neck barely registering that it was Itachi, Sasuke's brother, maybe he just needed to explain to Itachi what he was doing on the compound? But something didn't seem quite right, the look in Sasuke's eyes, one that was never on there before. It was full of hatred, hatred directed at his brother. A hatred tinged with fear. Was Itachi really going to kill me? Sure Naruto had seen Itachi maybe a handful of times but he had always seemed so kind. So peace loving, as if he would never kill a fly. But looks could be deceiving, he did live in a village full of shinobi that killed for a living. And Naruto never saw any homicidal maniacs going about, although he did see a lot of hate and disdain in the eyes of the villagers for some reason.

Sasuke brushed off Naruto, and ran off into the night after his brother.

Naruto thought he saw Sasuke's eyes turn red, but then brushed away the thought as another one entered his mind. Is Sasuke trying to...? And he set off right after Sasuke.

Itachi was leaving the Uchiha compound when he suddenly noticed his brother behind him, a kunai raised, eyes red with in both senses of the word. With blood lust and his newly awakened Sharingan. Already? Itachi thought. Getting ready to back hand his beloved little brother and leave him there unconscious. And possibly safe from the world until Sasuke was ready to face it. But not before Sasuke threw it with surprisingly good aim at Itachi's Hitai-ate making it drop to the ground. As Itachi picked it up, noticing that the kunai had caused a line to mar the Konoha symbol. Just like the hitai-ate of missing-nins. _Oh the irony,_ Itachi thought almost bitterly as a tear rolled down his cheek.

Naruto tackled Sasuke from behind trying to be careful of the kunai in Sasuke's hand but he still cut his palm on it. But even more still not before seeing the tear roll down Itachi's cheek. Sasuke began to struggle against him, trying to get to his brother but was stopped by Naruto's next words: "Stop Sasuke! What are you trying to do to your brother?! Your brother was crying."

"Why should I stop now? Just because he starting to feel a little remorse doesn't mean that he isn't - " Sasuke practically cried at him, the boy quickly deflating.

Itachi watched the exchange for a second before turning around and leaving silently.

But Naruto interrupted Sasuke, "Do you really believe that for a second? I know that I don't really know him. But you're his brother, you've known him longer than me. You should be the one to really know. Was that really what your brother would do?" Sasuke tries to say something but is again cut off by Naruto, "I'm not saying that wasn't him, but maybe, maybe he didn't do it because he wanted to but because he had to. Maybe..maybe...

The words were unsaid but they were there, maybe he _was ordered to_.

Sasuke picked up the implements of what Naruto had meant right away, and pretty much threatened Naruto to shut up that they had needed to talk another night. Not now when ANBU could be close. Sasuke wasn't going to let Naruto get himself killed with that loud mouth of his. The two waited for the scary ANBU to come.

Somewhere else Itachi was asking the Third to protect Sasuke. He agreed and decided to take Danzo out of the power that ROOT had given him and disband ROOT.

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Nara Head House - The Night after Uchiha Downfall

Shikako POV

I wasn't expecting to find Ue-Suke and Uma at my front door, if I had known about the questions they wanted to ask I wouldn't have invited the whole gang over. It lead to revealing everything being revealed to a group of seven year olds.

In my room was everyone in the original Rookie 9 plus me. I had to think up something to cover up the fact that in this world, walls actually do have ears (as in someone listening in). I don't think the silence seal will cut it for one and the fact that ANBU, if they were indeed listening would find it suspicious that they couldn't _hear_ anything from a group of seven years olds, that were all conveniently gathered together with the Last Uchiha the day after.

All of Rookie 9 have been over to my house to play at least one time, and I had modified Yoyoya to have the abilities of a robot. So she record both video and voice, and I can watch/listen to Rookie 9 afterward. Yes, I know I'm sort of a creeper, I do like to watch video's of my friends like a stalker. What if I forget something important that they tell me?

But I have also programmed Yoyo to be able to show a sort of video loop like in the movies where the scurity guards are all fooled by the protagonists? This is even better since a smart A.I is in control control of what exactly to show to outside eyes since well she can cut and give minute changes to the "video" so that no one gets suspicious. And since it technically isn't a genjutsu, not a lot of people can see through it. So after Ue-Suke and Uma came in, everyone else was already there since well it was the usual for them to come over for dinner. It's just that its getting kind of late and everyone hasn't been to my house at the same time.

I whispered in Yoyo-ya's ear: "Stealth Mode: Video Loop; of everyone in the room. And make sure the light in the window shows the correct time." Yoyo nodded before turning into a puddle of ink, that spread all over the floor of the room, soaking in the buckets of ink I had lining the walls to grow in size to the size of the walls and ceiling too. Later on when I dispel it she'll put the ink back into its proper place. It was a pain before I had coded the fact that Yoyo-ya had to put the ink back in its place as a part of her technique. It sucked having to clean up all the ink, even though I already had a seal that could clean up ink from any surface, but still it was even on the ceiling.

In a room of pitch black a group of seven year olds were gaping, except for Aki-Cho and Shika who already knew that Yoyo wasn't no ordinary cat. Where I then told them that they could talk without worrying about anyone hearing anything we said, whoever was eavesdropping would only be hearing the small talk of young kids. I gestured for Ue-Suke and Uma to talk about the things that I came over for. It was definitely not to do small talk.

Ue-Suke was despondent... lacking even the hate that he had in the original time line. The one who spoke up was Uma, starting with a awkward cough. "Yesterday when me and Sasuke..." He explained it all. What they found on the streets of the compound, what Itachi, Sasuke's brother did, even their own conclusions about his actions and the fact that maybe the Hokage might be responsible for it all. I paled, their speculations were practically spot on. Someone of power was responsible for all this. That something seemed off about the whole thing. It just didn't make any sense. They knew what Itachi had said, what he had wanted Sasuke to think.

I spoke up not wanting them to come to the wrong conclusions by themselves and possibly coming to hate the village as a whole, "Umm..It might not have been the Hokage that sent out that mission. The politics of Konoha are complicated. Not only could Itachi have been ordered by the Hokage, but also any of the council members, and the leaders of ANBU. There's even the rumors of a second, even more secret organization similar to ANBU that even kidnaps people with rare abilities and prodigies."

I was interrupted by a soft but clear voice, "That secret organization is called ROOT." The room slowly began to fill with the buzz of bugs. It was Shino, damn I had forgotten that his adopted brother was recruited, that Shino himself was this close to being abducted even in the canon-verse. I hadn't realized that it had happened already.

I continued, "So Itachi was ordered to do... what he did but why? For what reason would whoever it was order it? What can make someone scared enough to order the death of a whole clan? There's only one reason I could think of that fits, and that might be treason." I looked at Sasuke for confirmation.

Sasuke seemed to think about this, to struggle with his next words: "The Clan had been acting a little strange. The Uchiha clan has always been a little reclusive but this was.. different. The air was..strained, taut, as if there was something on their minds. Even the way dad treated It-Itachi was different - like he was suspicious of him. The thing I can't understand is how he could have done it. Our parents, the adults were one thing..." Sasuke trailed off.

Naruto finished his sentence for him, "Some of them were kids. Even younger than we are," he said this bitterly as if he was responsible for their deaths.

What came next was a prolonged silence, all of us lost in our own thoughts.

The silence was interrupted by Shika, only opening his eyes to stare at the ceiling above my bed. He drawled, "Yeah. Why would he leave Sasuke as the only survivor? So that he could grow up, and Itachi can test his own prowess against him? That seems too troublesome to me. So why would he do it? And leave only you alive? Maybe he wanted you to live. He didn't _have_ to do the mission, if he didn't want to. Maybe he accepted the mission because he cares about your well-being, Sasuke. I think that he did it for you, but I also believe that he didn't agree with the rest of your Clan. If he was ordered to take out the Clan but didn't want to he could have just betrayed the village and sided with your family. There's another thing, if he did it to keep you safe, why leave you here? At the mercy of the village who ordered the Uchihas killed? Sure he could have took you with him and then dump you at some normal village. But he didn't, he left you here for a reason. I think that he has someone in the upper echelons of Konoha that he trusts to keep you safe. And who holds the most power in a hidden village? Maybe its the Hokage but I advise you to keep this to yourself just in case. The Hokage might not have been informed of this "mission," and you never know how he'll react to you knowing. I also think that he might have left you here in this village because he wanted you to grow up here. Itachi might have his own reasons for doing what he did. Yes, he was a Uchiha but maybe he believed that he was Shinobi of Konoha first. Maybe.. maybe Itachi carries a burden that's most troublesome."

The only thoughts I could have thought were, wow, just wow. Shika answered everyone's questions and did my job for me. Now Sasuke might not go down a dark road, hating the village. Down a road where he hates the world and loathes himself. Now I kind of feel depressed again, a seven year old just did what I probably couldn't have done. Shika's my brother and I love him but wow he's so smart. He probably just thought that

There was a shocked silence. Some of us were shocked because of the revelations of our village. We were supposed to be the nicest shinobi village out there, so what did that mean for the other ones. Some of us were shocked because that was probably the smartest thing they ever heard out of my mouth. Others were were shocked that Shika had actually had the motivation to even open his mouth. And I was shocked about the power of Shika's reasoning ability.

I just hope that ANBU and ROOT doesn't come barging in, or a mysterious Nara Downfall that just so included all of the other Clan Heirs. I just need to calm down and make sure no one finds out what we suspect. I tired to get this across to the kids around me, "You guys know that we need to keep this a secret, right? That if anyone finds out what we suspect than the ANBU might take a sudden interest in us..."

But what shocked us the most wasn't what what I said it was when Ue-Suke shared with us the thoughts that have been brewing in his brain for the past several months. This is what came out of his mouth: "There's something else that's been bothering me. You've all noticed how the village treats Naruto right?" This part wasn't all that shocking since we've all witnessed this fact, the weird way that some of the adults of the village refer to Naruto. It wasn't something new, we had all became friends with Naruto regardless.

Sasuke than said, "But then last night when the ANBU came, they treated Naruto as if he was suspicious. As if he was the one to massacre my entire Clan. They didn't listen when I had told them that it was my brother. If it wasn't for the Hokage-sama's intervention Naruto might have been executed last night. They treated Naruto as if he was a monster..."

Before I could stop myself I blurted out what I knew from my last life and the information on the myths on Bijuus from this life. "Remember our history lesson on the Kyuubi that attacked our village a few years ago? Usually a bijuu isn't destroyed when it attacks a shinobi village, its usually sealed in a jinchuuriki. Plus the Kyuubi is the strongest out of all of the Bijuus...so how could he have died just like that. That could mean only one thing, that it was sealed into someone. If you think about the way that everyone in the village treats Uma-Kun than it could only mean that..It could only mean that Naruto has the Kyuubi sealed inside of him..."

There was another prolonged silence, this time everyone started to think about their own feelings. How did they feel? What does this mean for their relationship with Naruto? Wasn't Naruto just Naruto? The kids rationalized how only kids can rationalize. Naruto's was pale, he wasn't suppose to find out until years later. I hope he doesn't resent the village but in this life he's surrounded by a group of friends.

Then Inoya spoke up in the way that only a child of a Intelligence Division agent could, "But why don't we know that? Why is it taught at the Academy that the Kyuubi died? Why does the village keep quiet about it? Why don't the adults tell their kids why they don't like Naruto?"

There was another pregnant pause before a sigh came from my bed, and Shika answered what I didn't say.

"Isn't obvious? Whose word is law? Hokage-Sama probably put up a law that doesn't allow anyone to tell the younger generation about it, probably on the penalty of death too."

No one talked about any of what we talked about that day to anyone else, not even their parents. No one wanted to disappear. No one wanted to even think about the possibility of what might happen to their parents if anyone ever thought that their moms and dads were the ones that told them. Who would ever believe that a group of seven year olds had deduced all of that all by themselves?

At first the group seemed to almost fall apart. Without Ue-Suke and Uma it just felt different, the group dynamics changed. Uma was the one to keep the whole group together. After a few months Uma seemed to bounce back, but he probably pulled himself out of the slump in the hopes of helping Ue-Suke with his grief by including him in a group of friends. Naruto was still Naruto after all. After Uma salvaged our group of friends we seemed to be closer than ever. Our secrets brought us all together, and not only was Uma the center of our group but Ue-Suke was as well. We soon grew to be protective of our village's two pariahs. Even if one was continually praised as a genius, but to us they were both equally the village's scapegoats.

And life went on. Its just that now I had insomnia and going around the village at night. To make sure that no one would disappear or be secretly dragged off to interrogation. It never happened but I couldn't help myself from worrying, because I was here I had introduced them all to the chance of danger at such an early age. I couldn't bring myself to sleep knowing that. That didn't mean I wasn't cautious, I didn't want to attract the attention of ANBU or Danzo, so all I did was wonder around the village normally like a normal seven year old. Quiet randomly and slow.

On one of those nights I saw an ANBU agent standing there right outside the Uchiha compound (yes after they cleaned it all up Sasuke moved back in), not too long after the massacre. He had on an inu mask, and had spikey grey hair. Is that who I think it is. Is this back before he was promoted to Jonin-sensei? What's he doing here? Oh yea, wasn't Itachi a part of his ANBU team?

He looked so _depressed_. So against all the possible warning bells in my head about ANBU, I shamelessly went and glomped him. I was so small compared to him that my arms didn't even go all the way around him. I was the image of a little clingy kid, arms and legs wrapped around his mid-drift. At first he didn't even react, I think he was trying to be all nonchalant or something. I kept thinking to myself, play it up, play the little kid to its fullest. I put on big round eyes on my face, and played the role of the lost little kid.

"ANBU-nii-chan! I'm lost...Bring me ho~me."

Kakashi sighed, "Kid, you know I'm not a baby-sitter right? Now get off now," he tried to pull me off. But I stuck, its not like I was that strong or anything but he wasn't trying to hurt me. "And anyway, how do you know about the ANBU, its supposed to be a secret."

"Pfft," I went, "Please, Mr., even the civilian families knows about the 'secret' ANBU, and I'm from the Nara Clan. I even know some kids from my clan that have parents in the ANBU. So bring me home." I said in my brattiest voice.

Kakashi sighed again and brought me home, but on the way home I asked him another question. "ANBU-nii-san Did you know Itachi-nii-san?"

Kakashi didn't waver for even a second, he _was_ a shinobi prodigy. "Why do you say that? How do I remind you of this Itachi-nii-san?" _Ooh, he's playing innocent_, I thought.

"You guys have the same eyes," crap, crap it. Me and my big mouth, what if he becomes suspicious of me or something. How in the world would a little kid know that Itachi and Kakashi both had Sharingans? Shit! Say something blunt and childishly innocent! Something! "Because you guys both look so nice even though you guys are both ANBU guys. Maybe if I asked if you knew Itachi-nii-san, I'll know more about why he did..what he did" I didn't need to fake the sadness in my voice. "I've only known Ita-nii for a little bit but he didn't seem like the kind..Didn't he seem kind of sad?" Darn it!Me and my big mouth. I really hope he doesn't report a little kid's depressed ramblings..But still maybe I planted a little seed. I always thought that Kakashi and Itachi's friendship was brushed off. I knew that they were really just team mates in ANBU but all Kakashi did was become depressed and disappointed in Itachi, and never really _doubted_. Kakashi was silent the whole time escorting me home.

The rest of the Academy years were pretty canon, Uma was still had bad grades but after the Uchiha downfall, it had inspired him to learn medical-ninjutsu. He still wanted to be Hokage, so he wasn't aiming to be a medic-nin but he wanted to have the ability to help save lives when he needed it.

He had the help of Sasuke and recruited Sakura, who wanted to spend more time with Sasuke. Naruto had the help of the two smartest kids in the year but he just couldn't do it. Helping Naruto, Sakura got interested in learning medical ninjutsu too. I pulled some Nara strings, to get that Aunty to recommend them or at least test to see their aptitude for it. Since of course like canon Naruto had sucky chakra control and Sakura had potential. Naruto's hopes were dashed. And Sakura was really good at chakra control, that although she didn't want to be medic-nin but she had it as a second choice. She still wanted to be the first person in her family to become a ninja, to make her own shinobi clan, but she knew that she had other choices.

Naruto though became depressed, he went back down to be class last. He took up pranking the town: painting on the Hokage monument to get the village to pay attention, created up the sexy-jutsu to annoy the perverts and the neighborhood nee-sans that would reprimand him, and did other various pranks. He was less perverted himself though since he never actually peeked in the women's baths. Was it was because I tagged along? I don't think so in this time line Naruto seems more considerate of the people around us.

People could say that he was a bad influence on me since shortly after I became his partner in crime. Naruto still became close to the Hokage and viewed him like a grandfather. And so did I, after all I was also brought into the Hokage's office to be reprimanded. I would always ask cheekily if he knew where the scroll for the cat summons was. Sadly it was lost, not even Enma the Monkey King knew where it was. Naruto and I would always escaped the ANBU that was sent after us easily. Except that I used chakra strings, spider man style, to get away from the ANBU chasing me while Naruto used his endless stamina to run around. Naruto gained a partner in crime and I got to practice my chakra strings (and look cool (only in my mind)).

Eventually I could make ropes out of multiple strands, shoot 'em out of my palms and manually made pew, pew noises. I used the strings in my pranks making people trip, and even once briefly controlled an ANBU and made him fight the other ones chasing us, but that was only because I caught him by suprise. I became really good at using chakra strings but I never became interested in controlling puppets. Who would be interested in a mindless puppets when you could make an automaton with an A.I? Although I just said that I never did make an automaton, it was way too complicated and I never had the aptitude for Medical ninjutsu and anatomy needed to make it work. It took me eight years just to learn how to convert chakra and put it into someone that was chakra exhausted and I only worked at that so hard since I knew I would need that for Kakashi. It was just easier working with what I had, modifying Yoya's seal.

I wasn't dead last like Naruto, Kiba, Cho and Shika but I wasn't the top of the top like Sasuke and Sakura. I hung out and skipped class with Shika sometimes while still keeping up in class. Since it was all so interesting, and school almost seemed like a game. The dead lasts and me would cloud watch or hide from Iruka at the School's target practice grounds.

It wasn't like Rookie 9 stopped being friends or anything but time lead them to gradually move into groups much similar to their future genin teams. It could have been fate or it could have also been the fact that was how I used to group them when playing genin team. Naruto was still the string that connected all of our lives. And Naruto and Sasuke still practiced together after school. And argued a lot since Naruto could have at least tried when it came to grades. Naruto didn't give up being a ninja or becoming Hokage. He might have had some pretty bad grades but he tried his best to become strong, so that he could protect people _before_ Medical ninjutsu was needed, he never did become bitter. He encouraged Sakura to be the best that she could be. So Naruto still failed the Academic part of the Academy exam and still got tricked by Mizuki, still gained the Shadow Clone jutsu, and still traded in his goggles for Iruka-sensei's Hitai-ate.

Sakura and Ino crushed on Sasuke but this time Ino didn't let a boy come between them. Ino was still Ino, the daughter of an Intelligence Division agent. This Ino still cared about her looks but she had her priorities straight.

Time past and went and we graduated. Team 8 was Team 8. Team 10 was Team 10. Sakura went to Team 1 and still failed, I think they tried to put the smart kids on that team since Youbirin and Jiro was third and fourth in Academics. Team 7, Team 7 were the troublemakers. The Last of the Uchihas were of course teamed with the only Jonin-sensei with the only Sharingan to tutor him in. With Naruto and his crazy partner in crime, me, was thrown into the mix.

We'ver been waiting and we've still haven't met our Jonin-sensei. Except for me of course, XD.

Author's note: I'm sorry Silver Queen but I'm pretty sure Naruto made up the sexy jutsu and not taught? Or did I just mistake that?

I kind of hinted here that Shino's mom is the same person as his mom in the Fanfiction: Team 8. But Shino's abilities and fighting will be pretty canon. So no prey mantis style blades. I'm sorry for not asking you, author of Team 8. :(

I know the relationship between Naruto and Sasuke sounds kind of yaoi-ish but they are 7 years old, friendships mean the world to kids. But that's it they will be just friends.

I know I said that Naruto is not smarter than canon. He always had wonderful intuition its just now coupled with actual people and social skills to match and the fact that having friends that were clan hands and those kids are pretty smart so he has better deduction skills. He's still going to be bad at impulse control just not as annoying.

This is a what if. What if Sasuke had a close friend before the Uchiha downfall. What if this friend allowed Sasuke to relate to and realize that the world he lived in was unfair before the Uchiha downfall. This is the same angsty/broody Sasuke but one that is more considerate and empathetic.

Yes Shika was this smart. Remember when the twins were four and Shikako fought a boy for a calling her a girl? Shika was warning her not to use any skills that could catch the interest of the super secret ROOT that the two don't know the name of. Shikako can't tell anyone what she knows. Its one thing to have great deducting reasoning but she can't know what she doesn't have info on. For how the two know that theres a secret organization thats even more secret than ANBU is because they have good observation skills, they noticed when skilled kids disappeared. Whose to say that wasn't one of the reasons why Shika was so lazy in canon?

Oops, I just noticed that I've become a total Mary Sue character, oh well. Let me just tell you she might have a bunch of tools and abilities at her disposal but she's gonna suck at actual fighting at first. And I don't mean suck at taijutsu, since she practices alot with Shino. She just freezes up in the face of battle.


	10. Chapter 10 - 9

Prior warning: I have strong paraphrasing of the parts everyone knows about in canon. I have also heavily laced my story with elements from DOSun and Twelve Years Old. Maybe I should change my summary to a fanfic of fanfics? Some parts are very familiar but some parts are very different.

Chapter 9

The day before the Exam though, I had invited Naruto over to my house to plan our Id pictures. He was going to paint himself pale with red swirls like in canon. I took the pale skin idea from him and added..glitter. Yes, and the next day as the picture was taken I yelled Twilight! I had a few laughs, but when Shika had asked to see each other's pictures he just lazily looked at it and gave it back without comment. Awww, I thought that would have provoked more of a reaction from him. It is another world..

Anyway, I felt like keeping this part of the timeline similar to the one in DOSun so after the two of us had gotten our ids we went to look for Naruto, we looked for him at his apartment, Ichiraku's, and even Sasuke's House. In the end though we found him with Sasuke at their usual training grounds. Sasuke had met Naruto in the morning to treat him to some noodles and cheer him up out of not passing only to find him, well happy. So me and Shika traded ids with Sasuke and Naruto to see how they looked like. Naruto's still looked ridiculous, even compared to mine.

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So here we are now waiting for Kakashi in the classroom. Naruto was about to put up the chalk eraser, but I stopped him only to suggest my own. I pulled a bucket, rope, hook and regular ink from my OPD, and set it up very professionally. I left the rope in Naruto's hands though, no use getting in trouble. Sasuke just rolled his eyes. Then I sensed Kakashi coming down the hall. We even did a count down and everything. The door opened, the bucket fell and Kakashi glared at us under inky bangs. "You little brats!" he had yelled. "Meet me up on the ro-" "Wait," I interrupted him, "I have something to clean that up with." So I used by ink remover seal to clean him up and we apologized, it had seemed to make a lot more sense earlier. We met on the roof and Kakashi told us to introduce ourselves. He body flickered about.

Sasuke went for: "My name is Sasuke Uchiha. My hobbies are getting stronger. I hate eating greasy-ass noodles. My dream for the future... no my goal for the future is to bring honor back to my clan by -" Sasuke took a deep, shaky breath, "killing someone I love."

Wait, what? I thought Sasuke came to terms to what happened that day. Did he doubt what was said? Well, after all it was concluded by a seven year old.. Or does he plan to honor Itachi's wish: To become strong, and come to kill him so that Itachi could atone for his sins..Or does he plan on getting strong by doing what Itachi suggested? Either way, believing that you _need_ to kill someone is not good for the human psyche.

Naruto seemed disturbed as he said, "My name Naruto Uzumaki. I like to eat Ramen at Ichiraku's and hanging out with friends. I hate seeing people sad.. My hobby is preventing people from doing something they would regret. My Dream is to become Hokage-Sama and changing the world." Naruto sounded as seemed if his dream was overshadowed by hobby. Don't tell me that I changed the world this much? I didn't even _do_ anything. What if this was not for the better. What if killing Itachi destroys Sasuke in this world? What if Naruto snaps and goes against the world? What if ...

I snapped out of my thoughts as everyone started to stare at me. Was I thinking that long? "My name is Shikako Nara but you could either call me Ko or Ko-Kun. I like to do human experimentation... on myself. Uh.. I hate the fact that I'm allergic to cats. My hobbies are reading books and making up my own seals. My dream is to be recognized as my clan's next heir, and making my brother the next Hokage. I although I don't know how to make either of them come true. I kinda suck at politics..."

Naruto and Sasuke were looking at me like they wanted to say, Good luck with motivating Shikamaru. And then after a second Naruto seemed to finally notice what I had said and he exclaimed, "Hey! I'm going to become Hokage!"

Kakashi was about to say something but not before I remembered my other hobby, the one I had prepared just for the purpose of getting a response out of Kakashi. "Oh yea! I have another hobby. In my spare time I write romance novels about forbidden love!"

"Forbidden Love?" Naruto echoed totally oblivious.

Sasuke was eyeing me as if thinking something along the lines of:_ Is she saying what I think she is saying?_

"Yeah, about boys love," I answered as I took out a book from my OPD. "The main character is based on an ANBU agent that I never got the name of. So I named him Gyon Taji after that person's silver hair."

Naruto looked real confused as he said, "Aren't there usually a boy in a romance novel? I don't get it."

I turned to Kakashi with a maliciously innocent grin on my face, "Hey Jonin-sensei, do you know anyone in the ANBU with silver hair?" I flashed him the cover of my book, it had a scantily dressed young man on a bed, a thin blanket over a heavily ripped yet thing waist. The young man looked up at the audience with inviting eyes and had an inu mask in his hands. The young man in the picture had suspiciously familiar silver hair. He even had a mask on, after all I _didn't know_ who my model actually _looked_ like. Naruto peeked walked all the way around me to look at the cover at my book, he squinted and innocently declared, "Hey! This guy looks kind of like our Jonin-sensei!"

Kakashi coughed uncomfortably before continuing on, (_Hah! Kakashi, that aught to teach you not to bring those books to training!_) "My name is Kakashi Hatake, my likes and dislikes don't matter and you're all too young to know my hobbies. But one of you guys seem awfully precocious..," Kakashi muttered the last line, then he coughed to clear his throat. "Now that we all know each other, now I can tell you guys what we will be doing tomorrow."

"Yeah!" Naruto yelled, "Are we going on a mission? Save the day? Fight enemy ninja? I am so totally ready for it all!"

Kakashi laughed evilly. A silver of his chakra tried to make me see dark clouds gathering, and hear thunder far off into the distance. I could totally believe it though since evil laugh = lighting in back ground. Or at least in crazy land it does. The feeling of genjutsu feels kinda gross. I kind easily enough notice and dispel them but it sucks that I'm not very good at making them though.

"Oh its a mission all right," Kakashi said spookily, "A survival mission."

Naruto stopped bouncing off the walls.

"So you see," Kakashi started, "even though you guys graduated from the Academy, you aren't real Ninja just yet. Of the 27 kids who who graduated, only 9 of you will become shinobi. You still have to pass my test, which only has a 66% failure rate." Oh pish posh, I knew he hasn't passed anyone yet. I haven't been stalking him since he became a jonin sensei for nothing. It wasn't hard I just needed to go to the graduating class and look around for the only team standing around looking lost. I already knew that Kakashi likes to use Training Ground 3.

Kakashi leaned back looking smug, our shocked (not) faces.

"Meet me tomorrow morning at Training Ground 3 at five o'clock. Its gonna be harsh, its gonna be grueling. So unless you guys wanna be barfing the whole time, I suggest you don't eat breakfast." I was planning to follow the original Shikako's advice and eat at the appropriate times and even bring enough to share with the two tomorrow.

Kakashi than disappeared in a poof of leaves the work of a badass using the Body Flicker on us.

I went home, revealed that I had to take a test. Complained to Shika. Packed. Slept.

The next morning I went to the Training Ground 3, complete with river, 3 stumps, Memorial Stone, and forest. I lectured the two boys about the importance of breakfast when they came. As long as you ate light enough and timed it. Kakashi came and surprise, surprise it was his famous 2 bells, 3 students test. The other two were about to: a) rush head on. b) go plan in the trees. I grabbed Sasuke's wrist but I had Yoya tackle Naruto. I told them the test's true meaning, we were never going to get at him without team work and we made a plan. So Naruto distracted while me and Yoya tagged teamed Kakashi while Sasuke swooped in to get the bells. He missed, and Naruto got the bells. He made the decision to give up the bells, but it really looked like he didn't want Sasuke to take it.

There we went through the test, passed it with flying colors. We learned the meaning of the "Team work" catch phrase of Konoha, we had to put the mission in front of the person. Kakashi shows us the Memorial Stone, told us that on missions we would risk our lives, and Naruto learned that getting his name on the stone was not a good idea.

Kakashi dismissed us, I went one way the other two went another.

We got an official team photo it sort of looked like the canon one, except we didn't look like we all hated each other and/or were in our own little world.

I went to meet Ino at the Yamanaka Flower shop, and we went off to meet Sakura. Sakura had failed, her eyes were red and puffy but she knew what she was going to do next. Even if it was her second choice, but I knew that she could do it.

After that Shika, dad and me went to the Akimichi, Nara, Yamanaka Memorial stone to swear our oaths. We said an extremely modified oath because of the ambiguity of our birth.

"We hear by swear that as the Sixteenth clan heads, I will entrust the oath entrusted to me by the Fifteenth head to the child that will become the seventeenth clan head. In order to protect both the Yamanaka and Akimichi clans and to protect and serve Konoha. To serve and support each other as we would our teammates, We, Shikamaru/Shikako Nara, will become one with the shadows," Shika and I both said at the same time before we were presented with the earrings that dad and his brother had worn as genin.

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We met the next morning at Training ground 3, Kakashi was late. Do to preoccupy the time, the three of us sparred together.

Kakashi gave the excuse, "Ah, I fell down the stairs on the way here and got lost," when he arrived.

We went to the Hokage Tower and got our mission to look for Tora the cat. Outside the tower I made everyone wait and told them that I was in my element. I then yelled, "Yoyo: Secret Technique: Cat Lady, search for Tora!" Where Yoya gave me a perturbed look before a poof of smoke appeared and when it cleared there was a mob of cats. All red and black but they were all different sizes, and ages and fur types. They all turned to look at me for confirmation. I complied, "Off you go now my pretties!" offset by me then cackling maniacally. The only one to stay with me was a little one that was the size of a kitten perched on my shoulder.

My new teammates gave me a look. Before soon my prowess was shown off since mini-Yoya told me that one of her split offs had found Tora.

The next day I found myself at the Training Ground 3, I questioned Naruto about his clones and we clarified that he could get info out of them. Then I taught the two of them about tree and water walking.

We went back to the Hokage tower where Naruto complained and the Third gave us a C-Rank mission. Tazuna walked in, we were all introduced to one another. We all went home to pack, and met up at the gates.

It was all very canon except that I had Yoya in Guard Mode, where she looked like a panther, helping me guard Tazuna. We passed the puddle, two Chunin attacked, Naruto was poisoned and swore an oath to himself. He even scared a rabbit and apologized to it. It was so canon in fact that all I did was stare at the fight with Zabuza numbly. As Kakashi and Zabuza traded trash talk and blows. Where Kakashi got caught in the water prison. Even the Fuma Double Shadow Shuriken trick was used by Naruto and Sasuke, except that they had planned it before hand. After all they did train together.

I just kept freezing in the face of battle. There was Zabuza and Kakashi fighting again and the in Haku came in to save him. The only thing I even did was restore Kakashi's chakra at Tazuna's house. As Kakashi trained the boys in the woods I guarded Tazuna. Another difference was that Sasuke and Naruto had both befriended Haku in the forest. The next day, it was round two. We arrived on the bridge, found all the workers passed out and mist everywhere. The Demonic Mirrowing Ice Crystals were used to fight Sasuke, Naruto arrives and Sasuke uses his Sharingan, Naruto passes out and wakes up only to find Sasuke sacrificing himself. Naruto goes crazy and in the other fight Kakashi gets hurt protecting Tazuna which I was supposed to be doing. I was stupidly listening to Haku's monologue about his depressing life, I had watched it as anime in my past life, hell even Yoya was listening intently. But listening to it from Haku's own mouth made it seem more real. Kakashi was only there for a second but he was gone in another taking Zabuza with him. And..I went back to watching Haku. Now he was taunting Naruto to kill him. Then Haku just vanished. Wait. This seems familiar...Shit! My body just moved on its own, I guess a Nara could be fast when they want to.

Since I suddenly found myself looking into Kakashi's shocked face. My body was turned sideways, my right hand tight around Haku's forearm trying unsuccessfully to push him away. My left arm had a fucking Kakashi hand right in it, right where the arm started under the shoulder. Kakashi's face would have been soo much funnier if I hadn't just pulled a Rin on him. I opened my mouth to laugh and reasure him but the only that came out was a weak cough. At least there wasn't any blood. Then Kakashi pulled his fucking hand out of my fucking arm, and it just...fucking fell off. Like thwap! There it landed it on the ground. The three of us: Kakashi, Haku and me just stared at it dumbly, our mouths were probably hanging open. Then Kakashi's eyes widened and he pulled me close to his chest as he dodged out of the way of Zabuza's sword. I kind of just stared numbly at my shoulder nub that was squirting blood, my other hand was still wrapped around a shocked Haku's arm. Good thing too because if he had stayed there he would have been fucking crushed by Zabuza's fucking two ton sword.

What was it that caused Zabuza to realize that he actually did care about Haku more than a mere tool? I'm pretty sure in canon he was pretty much unfazed by Haku's death. Then I heard a familiar voice, it started to verbally abuse Zabuza about something... I couldn't really hear anything. What was it again? I was going to do something... Oh yea! My arm was gone.. I tried to cast my eyes around but it was blurry. The only thing I could see was a blurry figure in front of me that was connected to the end of the only left hand. What was it again a poem...? That wasn't right...I needed to stop the bleeding. I think. I opened my mouth and weakly called out for Yoyo. "Yoya...Yoyo: Hemostasis: stanch the bleeding from my arm and try to fix the blood loss: Blood Bank Activate..." Yeah why did I make that order so long, I really need to shorten it one of these days...

I felt a nice warmth spread around my body starting from my stub. My thoughts started to clear up and then my vision followed, and with it the first thing I saw was an inky black stub. My first thought was that I had also somehow burned it but then I recognized that it was Yoya.

Surprisingly my hand was still like a vase around Haku's arm. As my hearing cleared up I heard him say, "-did you did that? You don't even know me." Haku was still so shocked that he was talking to me while Kakashi and Zabuza fought. One of Zabuza's arms were already hanging limply at his side. Sometime when I had stared at the two of them Haku had come to conclusion that since he should have been dead. The fact that he was alive meant that he owed his life to me. That I now, like Zabuza owned his life and therefore had the right to his death. So then Haku took out a kunai from my kunai pouch, pried open my fingers from his arm, and put it into my now outstretched palm and gently closed my fingers around it. It felt weird when he brought my hand up to his throat, I felt so weak.

He kept telling me to end his life, to kill him. He was even making my mission easier by putting the kunai at the weakest part of the neck. Just apply a little pressure he urged, and my life would end.

When I saw that he was about to move my hand for me though, I tried to stop him. And being the clumsy person that I am, I tripped. And i guess all those saying in my past life about waving around a knife while running was not a good idea.

I tripped and stabbed myself on my stomach as I fell on Haku. We laid there and I was on top of him with my blood soaking into his clothes. I quickly took someof my blood and wrote the seal for sleep on his forehead. He was beginning to get annoying and writing on him wasn't hard he was staring at my blood on his hand dumbly stating that it wasn't his blood. He fell asleep as I told Yoya to: "Yoyo: Clean up this bloody mess, and fix me up."

Then I collapsed on Haku, looking to the world as if we had just offed each other. The only one that was dead was probably me. Yoyo couldn't he's wounds, she might be able to stop bleeding coming from a missing limb but not plug up holes in my stomach.

I couldn't move and I was growing colder. But face down I could still vaguely hear what was going on around me. I listened to Naruto berate Zabuza about his lack of feelings when Haku had just jumped in front of him, expecting to die. I don't even think anyone even realized that the two of us were laying down on the ground with a sizable amount of blood underneath us since Yoya couldn't keep up with my escaping blood. Until Gotou came around on his big boat and gloated about the both of us being dead. And then even my hearing started to go quiet.

Third person POV

Naruto and Kakashi paled. Naruto was agonizing that although he hadn't frozen up again, but he was too weak to make a difference. First Sasuke and now Shikako, they were both dead. Naruto just slid to the floor, even the mysterious boost of energy he had earlier was gone. As Naruto slumped to the ground, Kakashi had rushed to Shikako's side expecting to see the both of them wounded but instead he had found the only one bleeding to be his student. The Haku kid had only been sealed asleep. Kakashi started to panic, it wasn't that he was bad at medical ninjutsu but that if he was too late than ninjutsu wasn't going to do anything. You couldn't heal the dead.

As Kakashi was attempting to heal Shikako, Zabuza, Zabuza went bat shit crazy. He had looked over at where Haku was. Covered in so much blood. At least the kid had taken out the other brat with him but... But when Gotou had started to disrespect Haku than he just snapped. He wanted to kill Gotou and everyone that came on the boat with him. Zabuza got the bandages off his mouth, somehow got a kunai between his teeth and slaughtered Gotou and his minions. Even if he had succeeded in killing everyone related to Gotou, he was armless. At the end of his last mission, he collapsed. Sasuke woke up, but now there was still the problem of left over mercenaries. An arrow fell and the towns people and Kakashi and Naruto worked together to scare them off. Kakashi approached Zabuza and allowed him one last request.

When Zabuza was next to Haku though it was revealed to him by Kakashi that Haku and that girl were not dead, that he had only succumbed to that girl's fuinjutsu. He told Kakashi that it was his time to die, that the time spent with Haku was a happy time if not a little regretful. He made Kakashi promise that Haku has lived most of his life as a tool and now he needed to be free. He made Kakashi promise to allow Haku to live his life however he wanted whether it be as a shinobi or a civilian.

"Hey, one-eyed bastard (Kakashi had covered his eye again), I think I now know why I was so adamant about treating Haku as a tool. Life as a missing-nin is not the life for a child. I think I did it for the both of us, if one of us were to die, than the other could go on to fight..to live...Free of hesitation ..and the burdens of grief. Haha.. I can't believe it took me this long to realize. Haku, he's more than just a tool. Now though, he's free.. free to live as he pleases." Zabuza sighed, as if he was tired of this shitty world. He did not take another breath.

Kakashi carried Shikako in his arms as Naruto and a senbon-free Sasuke helped to carry Haku to Tazuna's house. No one noticed, now that Shikako's life was no longer in danger, a certain black cat wasn't by her side anymore. The cat had watched as the life had left Zabuza, and as Team Kakashi was leaving there the cat was still by Zabuza's body. Watching the things that were normally left unseen.

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I woke up and bolted up right, which wasn't a good idea because I usually rely on my left arm to get up. I would have ungracefully landed on my back if it wasn't for the warm body behind me. It would have been more nice.. if Haku wasn't wearing his Hunter-nin mask. Over the Kirigakure symbol on his mask was the character for sleep, at first I was horrified. I thought that he had written it with my blood but after a second, I realized that it was just regular ink. After he helped me sit a little more steadily, Haku backed up to sit seiza, behind me.

After I gathered my wits about me, I noticed that there were two sets of eyes plus one that was staring at me. I cleared my throat, "What happened?" I inquired.

There was an awkward silence where Kakashi, Naruto and Sasuke just kind of looked everywhere but me. I clarified,"What happened after I passed out?" It seemed that even what happened after I passed out was pretty much canon too. Zabuza and Kakashi fought with the former loosing, but then Gotou arrived taunted Haku and mine's 'dead' bodies. Zabuza went nuts and went on a suicide mission. It was the same as canon except that Haku was alive. I feel like a failure the original Shikako had saved both Haku and Zabuza, sort of. I leaned back but was startled by a rumbling noice, it was Yoya still in panter form. If it wasn't for her I probably would have bleed out. I scratched her behind the ears and thanked her, she welcomed me back with a purr.

"Umm, did anyone bring my arm back?" Apparently no one thought that I might want to bury or cremate it or whatever. Although that's not why I wanted it... The cough behind me startled me, it was Haku clearing his throat. I turned around in my futon, and there he was with sealing scroll, with the symbol for arm in the circle. He freed my missing limb from the scroll. It felt weird looking at my arm like that, at this angle.. Haku had even thought to wrap my at up in bandages before he sealed it. That was...thoughtful of him. Hah, at least he thought to bring it. Haku did that sort of kneeling walk that you only see in the presence of someone very important, lime I was a damiyo or something. He then presented it to me with a, "Here it is, Shikako-Sama." Everyone else in the room seemed uncomfortable with his formal speech, well.. So was I but how can I fix this? Sigh, I really need to fix this, don't I? Before it gets out of hand...

"Thanks Haku," I said as I took my arm and put it across my lap. His facial expressions stayed the same, a professional one, but why do I get the feeling that he's...ecstatic about something? Yeah, I really need to fix this, I really don't need him to follow me around and saving me everytime I face danger from the shadows or something. I'll never learn to get over battle apprehension.

I sighed, planning to rub my face with my hands. But, yeah I'm missing an arm. I achieved to do an awkward one-handed wipe of my face but it doesn't feel the same. Huh, let me do something. I pick up my arm and try to send chakra strings out of my... stub and connect it to my arm. There's a part of the arm that's just not there so if I want my arms to be even I have to leave a bundle of chakra strings to have enough length. Didn't Kankuro make a puppet out of Sasori's body? That seems kind of gross, I'll have to use formaldehyde, or at least this world's version of. -_-' I realy don't want to go around lugging around a dead body part even if its mine. I just hope that this world has some kind of prosthetic industry. The whole time I watched the anime I haven't seen someone missing a limb which is weird once you consider a ninja's job description. They probably do have a prosthetic industry since there are ninjas with the whole puppet mastery.

I sighed again before saying, "Yoyo, here, preserve it or something." I threw the arm and Yoya seemed to stretch before seeming to sallow the arm whole. Yoya will figure something out, she's awesome like that. Intelligent and self-learning and all. I was kind of absorbed in what I was doing so when I looked up after that everyone was kind of staring at me.

Kakashi was trying the best to look nonchalant but I guess it wasn't everyday that he saw a panther eat one of his students' arms. Sasuke looked like he wanted to face palm, if he knew what that was. And Naruto looked like he wanted loudly exclaim about how cool the cat looked, but was doing the best he could to suppress the urge. He reminded me that although he had patched me up on the field, I still needed to take it easy before I'm checked out by professionals at the hospital.

I took a deep breath before saying, "Hey, Haku? Can you help me take a walk outside, please?"

"Yes, Shikako-Sama"

Kakashi looked like he wanted to protest but then thought better of it.

So in the forest behind the house, Haku set me against a tree.

"Soo...Haku, what are you feeling right now?" I said.

"If you ask me of it, I would gladly give you my left arm, and live as your right hand. If you told me to sleep, Shikako-Sama, I would gladly rest in peace." _Was that a pun? About death? Crap this is worse than I thought. _

"No, I mean, how are you feeling about Zabuza?" I tentatively put out there.

"I feel nothing. I will believe whatever you want me to believe. I will believe whatever you believe I should feel. I am at your service, Shikako-Sama."

Great. How am I going to fix this? I forgot that Haku didn't see how Zabuza became angry in his deference of him. How am I going to do this? I wouldn't be able to believe anything he says about his emotions. Everything I say might have the opposite effect of what I want.

"Hah," I sighed, "Ko. Cal me Ko. Without the honorifics would be best, Haku."

"Ko-Sama," Haku tried out the name on his tongue, "than the same could be said of you. Haku died out there that day with the Kirigakure missing-nin, Zabuza. I wish to rechristen my self," Haku paused looking for something from me.

"Uhh," I intoned, "Continue?"

"I wish to take on the name, Sui, in my service to you," Haku, no Sui(?) stated.

I wonder if he took on the name Sui for a personal reason for himself. I mean there's the word Sui in Suimin(sleep) but doesn't Sui also mean water? Maybe he took the name for personal reasons, since you know he was born in the Land of Water. It;s nice if he took the time to really think this through.

I sighed yet again, "So, Sui? What do you want to do now?" I feel like we're not going anywhere with this.

"I wish to serve you, Ko-Sama, for the rest of my life. Because of my years under the service of missing-nin, Zabuza, as a mercenary; I have a variety of skill under my disposal. If you order me so, Ko-Sama, I would spend my remaining years as your shadow protecting y-"

"Stop," I said, "That isn't what I want at all," I wanted say more in the same vein but Sui looked devastated in a stoic sort of way. I relented, "Okay, Sui, if a mission is what you really, really want than I'll give you one when we get back to Konoha but for right now just follow us without being seen. But, Sui don't you see? You can do whatever you want. You can become a shinobi of Konoha, or even become a civilian. You're smart you could set your sights on any trade that you desire. If you really wanted to be a civilian I bet you that Kakashi would pull some strings that would at least allow you to become a citizen of Konoha. So, Sui can you please think about it? Even if you want me to give you orders; I want you...no I order you to do what you believe in. I want us to be on friendly terms, I want you to be firm in the opinions you give me. If you ever feel that you don't agree with me, I want you to voice your complaints. And if you don't change your mind about following me, and we can't be on equal terms. I want us to be at least friends. Friends like you are already with Naruto and Sasuke."

"Friends?" Sui finally, finally had a _noticeable_ change in expressions.

Misunderstanding what Sui meant I answered with, "Yeah, I bet you that Naruto and Sasuke already consider you friends. Didn't you notice the betrayed looks on their faces when you revealed your face to them? Naruto and Sasuke had mentioned meeting you in the forest earlier. About having precious person you needed to protect? Wasn't your precious person Zabuza? I also have precious people I want to protect. I didn't just become a ninja because my family wanted me to, I became a ninja to protect my family. To protect Shikamaru, to protect my friends, like my friends at home and even Naruto and Sasuke and now you. But I also want to protect the peace loving Konoha that I came to love.

After a day more of rest we headed back to Konoha. We were almost all the way there when I passed out and Sui appeared out of the shadows to carry me princess style the rest of the way to Konoha, where he reluctantly left me at the hospital and followed Kakashi to meet the Hokage.

author's note: please please, review! I don't even know what the website means by views. I don't know if people read the whole chapter or if people even like it. help me, explain it to me! Even PM me about it. So please tell me, and review if you want to know pairings? I'm going to make Kankuro real pissed on our meeting so do you guys think if he has the balls to go against Gaara and maybe interfere with my chunin exam?


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